Cyborgs, Androids, and AI: Posthuman Bodies from 1950 to Today - Detailseite

This seminar examines how science fiction has imagined the relationship between humans and machines from the Cold War era to the present day. As artificial intelligence and technological personhood emerged as a prominent themes in post-war cultural imagination, authors began questioning the boundaries of what constitutes human identity and consciousness. Through figures like the android, cyborg, and artificial intelligence, as well as concepts such as cyberspace, the resulting texts explore the increasingly blurred boundaries between human and machine, raising fundamental questions about consciousness, embodiment, gender, and identity.

In the first part of the seminar, we will establish a theoretical foundation by engaging with key texts in posthumanist thought from the 1980s and 1990s. In the second part, we will apply these frameworks to a chronological survey of science fiction from 1950 to today. Through close readings of works by Alan Turing, Philip K. Dick, James Tiptree Jr., William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, Donna Haraway, and others, we will trace how authors have used technological speculation to challenge conventional understandings of what it means to be human. The seminar concludes by examining contemporary debates around AI through recent fiction and journalism, connecting historical concerns to present-day questions.

Please acquire copies of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick, 1968) and All Systems Red (Martha Wells, 2017). All other texts will be provided on Moodle.