Techno-Gothic
Version 3.0
|
Headnote on Pedagogy: This course is a prototype for the Transcriptions Project version of this course I will be offering in Spring 2000. My goal was to make this syllabus a gradually expanding resource for ongoing class research: papers, reports and final projects. To advance this goal, I allowed our syllabus for the Spring '99 version of the "Techno-Gothic" to develop into a log for the course. As student papers and presentations in our small seminar of 15 were completed, they were submitted on disk or electronically, and then added to the syllabus. I encouraged students to refer to each other's work in their presentations, papers and final exam. I have often used email to stage between seminar discussions of topics from the seminar. But this relatively simple use of the Web, over the course of our course, allowed for more active forms of collaboration than I've witnessed in my other seminars. --Bill Warner |
Professor William Warner
Department of English/ University
of California at Santa Barbara
warner@humanitas.ucsb.edu
|
4/5 Introduction: Technology and the Gothic Overview: In the
era of the French revolution audiences began to enjoy reading in order
to feel terror. At the center of this development is what we call the
"gothic"—a spectacularly popular form of fiction which took
Protestant readers back into dangerous European cultural spaces of crypts,
bodies, magic and danger. Since the 18th century it has emerged
as one of the most influential forms of modern entertainment. This course
will center upon a selective group of novels and films in order to probe
the meaning of the intersection between the gothic genre and the onset
of new technologies.
|
| 4/7 E.T.A. Hoffman, "The Sandman"* |
| 4/12 Freud, "The Uncanny"* |
| 4/14 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) |
| 4/19 Frankenstein |
| 4/21 Frankenstein |
|
related web sites
|
|
4/26 Frankenstein, Paper (2 pages) due; 5:00-7:00 PM: Screening of Metropolis |
|
4/28 Fritz Lang, Metropolis (1922), Paul M. Jensen, "Metropolis: the film and the Book"* Seminar Presentations Becky Duncan: My presentation discussed some of the religious themes and symbols in Metropolis. The film parallels the story of the fall of man (Adam) in the Bible. In the beginning, Freder is in a "Pleasure Garden" and seems to be very happy, as Adam was in Eden. Then, Maria appears and gives him knowledge of the underworld which causes him to "fall" from his blissful existence into a more knowledgeable and sympathetic state. The world above is depicted as a utopian society where no one works, but they depend on the workers of the hellish underworld. The workers sacrifice themselves for the people who live above them. The use of the Biblical Babel shows that Metropolis is like Babel in that the end result is confusion and separation in a society that is based on ambition and competition among humans. Other religious symbols are found in the characters of Maria and Freder. Maria is a savior and goddess who is portrayed as the motherly Mary character, while Freder is a mediator and tries to be a savior by going to the underworld to help the workers.
|
|
related web sites
|
|
5/3 Matthew Lewis, The Monk (1796) Seminar Presentations Sheena Burwick: Psychoanalytic Approach to the Character of Ambrosio in The Monk In Father Ambrosio's sexual fantasy that becomes diabolical reality Matthew Lewis takes us into the erotically violent darkness of the human mind. A psychoanalytic reading using Jungian concepts of the war between the primitive drives of pleasure and death and the Christian-inspired cleaving of good and evil into two separate domains helps explain the saintly Ambrosio's transformation into Satanic satyr. The more idealized the good side, says Jung, the baser the shadow side. Ambrosio suppresses his evil side--his desire for sexual experience. He splits it off from his consciousness. Because his shadow is an integral part of his psyche, it can't be removed; it remains in his unconscious. He becomes two people in one--a double being. Rosario is his double in the novel. Rosario/Matilda represents Ambrosio's suppressed sexuality which overcomes and possesses him. Ambrosio, in effect, becomes a victim, watching helplessly as the evil parts of his nature overtake him and transform him into the evil other. The relationship becomes more obsessive. A fight for the soul is the climactic battle of good and evil.
|
| 5/5 The Monk |
|
related web sites
|
|
5/10 The Monk 5:00-7:00 PM: Screening of Blade Runner |
|
5/12 Ridley Scott, Blade Runner (1982) Donna Haraway, "A Manifesto for Cyborgs"* Seminar Presentations Jennifer Casey: There are different ways in which we can understand Frankenstein's creature and Blade Runner's replicants in terms of Haraway's definition of the cyborg. Like Haraway's cyborg, both the creature and replicants transgress the boundaries between man, machine, and beast. Frankenstein is assembled from human body parts (human), created through the pursuit of science and infused with life through electrical impulse (technology), and appears in the novel as a grotesque bestial figure termed "wretch" and "monster" by his creator (beast). Blade Runner's replicants are an obvious blend of technological creation with the human capacity for emotion and [implanted] memory and each character tends to be associated with an animal/beast (Roy=dove, Zhora=snake,Tyrell=owl, Deckard=unicorn). If Haraway warns of the danger inherent in Western society's strict categories and confining dualisms, Frankenstein's creature is a manifestation of just how destructive these modes of thought can be.He becomes a hateful murderous individual precisely because he does not fit into society's categories and can not identify with traditional Western roles (In his examination of Paradise Lost he examines his relationship to Adam, Eve, and Satan and finds he can identify with none of them). Blade Runner's replicants also blur strict categorical boundaries in that they defy our traditional understanding of the division between man and machine. Their existence, and particularly the relationship between Rachel and Deckard makes the Harawayesque argument that perhaps the distinction is irrelevant. Haraway argues that "science IS culture" and that culture constructs human lives in the same way that science and technology construct replicants. Cyberspace, Hypertext, & Critical Theory by George P. Landow and others at Brown University is a webspace that includes pages on The Cyborg, Cyberpunk, and Prostheses, among other topics. [suggested by Jennifer Casey] Erica Frantz: My presentation involved a summary of Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto." I discussed some of Haraway's main arguments for a Cyborg world and vocabulary. Haraway discusses the way in which the boundaries between human/animal/machine have been transgressed resulting in the creation of cyborgs. Cyborgs are everyone and everywhere, whether we are consciously aware of this or not. The key culprit of these boundary transgressions is the movement of science and technology(although Haraway would not regard this movement as negative). Her advice in this cyborg myth/manifesto is to take pleasure in this border confusion, as well as responsibility for the construction of societal taxonomies which try to enforce these borders. I also discussed the way in which Haraway's piece functions as a performative piece, actually acting out what it argues in a postmodern fashion. The question I left to pose is if this world is a world that is appealing or rather one to be feared.
|
|
related web sites
|
|
Philip K. Dick's definition of s/f: In a letter to a friend, Dick describes the way in which his s/f develops a certain cultural critique. Dick claimed that s/f must develop from a "distinct new idea" that takes off from "our world" so "[the s/f world] ...differ[s] from the given [one] in at least one way, and this one way must be sufficient to give rise to events that could not occur in our society-- or in any known society present or past. There must be a coherent idea involved in this dislocation....so that as a result a new society is generated in the author's mind, transferred to paper, and from paper it occurs as a convulsive shock in the reader's mind, the shock of dysrecognition.... If it is good sf the idea is new,... it is stimulating, and, probably most important of all, it sets off a chain-reaction of ramification-- ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader's mind so that that mind, like the author's, begins to create."[xiii-xiv][footnote: Preface to The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford]
|
|
5/17 Blade Runner Seminar Presentations Kier Dubois: The novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" presents a crippled and impotent human race obsessed with place and hierarchy so as to present some sense of order in their lives. When lines are blurred between categories, such as Haraway's human/machine/animal cyborg, these humans are terrified. The idea of a hybrid upsetting the order of things leads to either extensive self-examination (bladerunners testing each other as replicants), designation of individuality in restricted categories (in animal almanacs and price guides, etc.), or resigned collective denial (the Mercer cult). Specific definitions are sought so as to eliminate identity confusion and to perpetuate the hierarchical order with Man at the top. Humans are human, replicants are not.
|
|
5/19 Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897) 5/21 11:00-12:00 Screening (Optional): Nosferatu |
|
related web sites
|
|
5/24 Dracula 24 Screening: Videodrome |
|
26 Dracula Seminar Presentations Genevieve Beach: By way of introduction, I spoke about the way Bram Stoker writes a gothic novel about ordinary people who experience the extraordinary. This quality, along with the transgressive and dangerous ideas of the dark side within us, taboo subjects of sexuality and religiosity, and the search for some kind of immortality and never ending youthful state make Dracula a universally appealing text. The Dracula story has its counterparts in almost every culture and time period with recorded textual history. Stoker makes the leading male characters (the supposed archetypes of good and evil) Dracula and Jonathan strikingly similar in certain passages of the text, which posits an uncanny likeness between the two. Also, by transforming "good" characters such as Lucy and Mina into "evil" ones, the duality and tension between these forces WITHIN the single character is likewise seen. To consider more carefully one aspect of this text which attracts by its very promise of immortality and its repulsively attractive focus on an "ordinary" part of each person's life, I noted that Bram Stoker uses most profusely, the image of blood in his text. Given the Western Christian setting of the text, the use of blood as a life force, necessary for the vampires to have energy and power, youth and un-death; makes this a potent image. The idea of purity and forgiveness carried with the blood of Christ is perverted and appropriated by evil to sustain the un-death of the vampires. This also makes evil contingent upon good, given the understanding that blood and life are "good" forces, when they are of God. The perversion of the good is evil. Evil therefore is not an entity apart from good which can survive without it. This is why Dracula must sleep in his "holy" ground, transported to England. By making the point that what is seen as "good" also embodies evil in THIS world, Stoker brings the fallenness of the human race and the tainted nature of blood to the foreground and further makes it clear that there is yet purity and life (not un-death) to be had, through that which is never perverted or polluted by evil- God. Hence, Dracula and his kind (like Milton's Satan and the other fallen angels) are ultimately powerless against God. Stoker's text rests on this foundation and yet the body of it enjoys the playing out of transgressive, uncanny, sexual and taboo spaces and images. This, for the Western Xian readership of the time and even for the post-modern reader, elicits an appreciation and attraction to what can frighten, entice and maybe even ultimately set them free. Holly Friden: I talked about a few different issues, including free will, Dracula as a gothic, romantic figure, and how evil begets more evil. Concerning the issue of free will, I made the comparison between Dracula and Frankenstein. Frankenstein takes God's power into his own hands, knowing that it is wrong and completely anti-Christian. Dracula takes life also (at the same time, he gives another kind of life to his victims). Even though the lives he takes are for self-preservation, he still does take life, hence making him anti-Christian also. His free will is suppressed by the sheer necessity to survive. I found interesting in the story the imagery that is created to support some of the themes present in Dracula. Dracula and his presence are personified in nature various times throughout the book. From wind, to the sea, to fog, to different animals, Dracula's presence is felt constantly. Like God, he is omniscient, but he is the polar opposite of God, the exact opposite of good. Whether he truly wishes to possess his position in life, that of an evil and threatening being, is irrelevant: he still is a sort of anti-Christ, whether willingly or not. Also, the use of circles, from the moon, to Jonathan's ride to the Count's castle (his carriage goes in incessant circles to confuse him as to how to get there), to the round puncture wounds that Dracula delivers. I found this to be a metaphor to the constant cycle of evil and taking life. Dracula, despite the fact that he is a feared creature, is at the same time an intriguingly romantic character. He possesses all the characteristics of any other romantic leading man, except for the little fact that he has a diversion to blood! Tall, dark, mysterious, and wealthy, men, as Gavin said, want to be him, and women are attracted to him.
|
|
related web sites
|
| 5/31 NO CLASS |
| 6/2 David Cronenberg, Videodrome |
| 6/7 Videodrome |
|
sites related to this course
|
|
Goals: I would like this class run as a real seminar. Although there will be some formal presentations by professor and students, Each seminar should be centered upon the ideas we all develop in discussion. Therefore, this class will be structured so each student can develop expertise they share with the class. This goal has shaped the assignments for this course: In the first assignment, each student will develop a different topic for a short (2 page) paper on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Then each student (or team of 2 or 3 students) will develop a research topic upon which to do a short seminar presentation, and then a final term-paper. I urge you to use the Web and the Library to find compelling ideas upon each of the texts and films in the class. Although we will use the critical power of textual analysis, your written work can range into broad cultural topics addressing the intersection of technology and culture, s/f and the Gothic. In order to get help with developing research projects, we will have a listserv for e-mail, student conferences with me, and feedback from the seminar on each presentation. In short, I hope we can make this seminar a collaborative effort. |
| Texts at the University bookstore:
|
*The Reader may be purchased at the Alternative Copy Shop, 6556 Pardall Road, Isla Vista: 968-1055.
Requirements: One Short paper; Seminar presentation & Term Paper; Final Exam
Link to the English Department site Transcriptions Project of which this site is a Course Prototype
Syllabus materials by William B. Warner, HTML and related links by Bill Warner and Vince Willoughby 4/21/99 (revised 6/26/99)