“Gender and Technology”

This course examines how technology affects the way human beings construct gender and sexuality through cultural and fictional output (novels, films, performance art etc). From avatars to vampiric typewriters, cyborgs to surgical performance art, our fictional, cinematic and artistic texts navigate gendered subjects through periods of rapid technological change. We will consider theoretical questions surrounding gendered monstrosity, horror, desire, and the posthuman. This course will help students think critically about the interface between technology, creative expression, and lived experience in a global context. Texts include: Bram Stoker, Dracula, HG Wells, The Island of Dr Moreau, Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Invention of Morel, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and theoretical texts. [Web course]