BODIES AND MACHINES

The Honors College University of Arizona Dr. Victor Braitberg FALL 2012 COURSE DESCRIPTION
From the world of industrial machines to the world of digital devices, the changing landscape of technology in our everyday lives has a profound effect on how we think about and experience our bodies. Using historical and cross-cultural perspectives this class explores how configurations of bodies and machines shape what we define as normal or natural, how we experience space and time, and how we understand the differences between humans and non-humans.

COURSE PROPOSAL FOR GENERAL EDUCATION COURSE/INDIVIDUALS AND SOCIETIES TIER 2

Our point of departure will be ideas and images of technology and the body from the scientific and technological revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. Our aim will be to understand how these imaginaries have informed our contemporary experience of technology, the body and notions of the ideal society. We will then turn our attention to the scientific and technological movements of Eugenics and Taylorism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to explore the ways that concerns about industrial production and population growth intersected with visions of bodies perfectly tuned to the rhythms of the factory and whose reproduction would be engineered to remove all hereditary imperfections. Our examination of the mid-20th century to the present will be concerned with the emergence of computing technologies and communication networks. We will

focus in particular on the histories of cybernetics and post-industrialism which have reimagined the boundaries between the human and the machine as well as the social and the biological. Our discussions, written assignments, and class projects will be based on a broad, interdisciplinary range of sources including but not limited to popular films, scholarly works, visual arts, and novels.

REQUIRED BOOKS (AVAILABLE FROM UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA BOOKSTORE) 1. Mary Shelly (1818) Frankenstein, Or The Modern Prometheus 2. Carolyn Thomas de la Pena (2003) The Body Electric: How Strange Machines Built the Modern American. New York, NY: New York University Press. 3. Aldous Huxley {1932) Brave New World. 4. David Serlin (2004) Replaceable You: Engineering the Body in Postwar America.

Jean Baudrillard (1987) The Ecstasy of Communication. New York, NY: Semiotexte
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6. Philip K Dick (1968) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS All required and recommended articles and book chapters will be made available through the course web page. FILMS AI Avatar Blade Runner Frankenstein GATACCA The Matrix Metropolis Modern Times Star Trek THX 1138 COURSE OBJECTIVES 1. Identify how scientific and technological modifications of the body articulate social and political ideals. 2. Identify how visions and techniques for technologically transforming the body articulate dissatisfaction with existing social and political orders. 3. Critically examine the political, economic, and cultural contexts for the scientific and technological modification of the human body.. 4. Evaluate how technological bodies transgress existing social and political arrangements, or conversely, how they reinforce and normalize them.

EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES 1. Increased understanding of the interdependent relations between ideas about science, technology, and the body. 2. Increased understanding of the historical relationships between science, technology, the body and social thought. 3. Improved ability to think critically about social and political ideals and their relationship to understandings of science, technology, and the body. 4. Expanded proficiency in expository writing and the use of primary sources. TEACHING METHODOLOGY The following methods will be used to explore course topics: Instructor lectures Group discussion Online journals Individual short papers Team-based learning activities Peer presentations GRADES Class participation Online Journal Paper #1 Paper #2 Team Project A B C D F = (1000-900) = (890-800) = (790-700) = (690-600) = (below 590) 200pts 300pts 100pts 100pts 300pts Total: 1000pts

COURSE EXPECTATIONS Attendance: In-class discussions and activities will be a central feature of this class. You will be expected to attend all classes for the full scheduled time. Arriving to class late on two or more occasions will be counted as an absence. You are allowed two absences for any reason. Fifty points will be taken from your final grade (out of 1000) for each additional class missed. You will be responsible for submitting assignments ahead of time and for getting notes from your classmates if you miss class. Readings: All readings must be completed prior to the class meeting for which they are scheduled. You are required to bring the scheduled readings with you to class. Required and recommended articles and book chapters will be made available online. Participation: The course will require full participation (including active listening, facilitating, note-taking, and asking questions). Successful
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participation in this class will mean engaging with the readings in a thoughtful way that integrates and builds upon the ideas of others. Students will be expected to treat each other and the instructor with respect when it comes to differences of interpretation and opinion. Technology: Laptop computers and other digital devices should be used only for instructional purposes during class. Checking email browsing the web, texting, etc... will be considered disruptive behavior. You will receive a verbal warning for the first occurrence. Any recurrence will result in losing a minimum of fifty points from your final grade (out of 1000). COURSE ASSIGNMENTS On-Line Journal (300pts = 6 X 50pts): Starting in Week 2 on-line journal entries of approximately 750 words (3-4 double spaced pages) will be due Saturdays by noon. The questions for your entry will be based on our class discussions and/or readings and will be posted on D2L.. The first question will be posted in Week 1 of the course. Journal entries should be based primarily on the required reading for the week (you are encouraged to write about readings in the course bibliography that are not scheduled in the syllabus). Your journal entries should reflect engagement with the reading and class discussion. Your entry should be written in essay form. The essay should have a theme and a critical perspective. A critical perspective does not require that you be against the ideas expressed in the reading and/or class lectures. Critical means that you have considered alternative interpretations to those presented in the reading and lectures.

There will be questions for every class. You will be required to submit six journal entries out of 13 journal questions. Each will be worth 50 pts for a total of 300pts. Submitting more than the six required journal entries will count as extra credit. Individual Papers (200pts = 2 x 100pts): Two papers of approximately 6-8 double-spaced pages will be required. Detailed instructions for writing these papers will be made available on our course web page during the first week of classes. Paper #1 (100pts) (Due Week 4): The instructions for the first paper will be posted on D2L by week 1. This paper will require you to reflect on your personal experience of bodies and machines as well as drawing on a minimum of three secondary sources from our syllabus. Paper #2 (100pts) (Due Week 7): The instructions for the second paper will be posted on D2L by week 2 .For this paper, you will write about a dimension of bodies and machines using two primary sources and three secondary sources from the course syllabus.

Team Project (300pts): Your team project will be due on the last day of classes. It will be a team based research paper and class presentation. The paper will be 20 pages and collectively authored. Detailed instructions for this paper will be made available on D2L during the first week of classes. The purpose of the team project is to document a particular dimension of the relationship between bodies and machines and to present what you have found to the class. This research project will consist of locating primary sources which document the particular topic that you will have chosen by the third week of class. These might include newspaper articles, web pages, industry reports, advertisements, cartoons, interviews, etc.... You are encouraged to have fun and be creative with your presentation. To receive full credit for this assignment, you will be expected to clearly address all six of our course objectives as they relate to your topic. This assignment will count as your final exam.

COURSE OUTLINE Week 1 society. Introduction: Approaches to the body, technology and

Film excerpts: Metropolis, Modern Times, and Avatar Week 2 History and Anthropology of the Body READING: Farquhar and Lock, An Emergent Cannon, Or Putting Bodies on the Scholarly Agenda, 19-82. Part 1, Beyond the Body Proper.

Week 3: Critical Perspectives on Bodily Experience READING: Farquhar and Lock, Philosophical Studies, or Learning How to Think Embodiment, 107-175, Part 2, Beyond the Body Proper. Week 4: READING:

Early Modern Science and Mechanical Bodies

Otto Mayr (1986) The Clockwork Universe, 54-101. Authority, Liberty, & Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Gaby Wood (2003) Edisons Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life. New York, NY: Anchor [EXCERPTS]

FILM: AI DUE: Topic for Group Paper and Presentation DUE: PAPER #1 Week 5 Nature, Technology, and the Body READINGS: Mary Shelly, Frankenstein Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter (1992) Foreward, 12-15. Incorporations. New York: NY: Zone. Donna Haraway (1992) When Man is on the Menu, 39-43. Incorporations. New York: NY: Zone. FILM: Frankenstein (1931) Week 6 Industrial Bodies READING: Anson Rabinbach (1990) The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity. Berkley,CA: University of California [EXCERPTS]

Harry Braverman (1974) Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York, NY:Monthly Review[EXCERPTS]
John Kasson (2001) Who is the Perfect Man? Eugen Sandow and a New Standard for America, 21-76. Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and The Challenge of Modernity in America. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.

FILM: Modern Times (1936) Week 7 Industrial Bodies in Time and Motion READING:

Hillel Schwartz (1992) Torque: The New Kinaesthetic of the Twentieth Century, 70-127. Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter, Eds Incorporations. New York, NY: Zone

Anthea Callen (2008) Man or Machine: Ideals of the Laboring Male Body and the Aesthetics of Industrial Production in Early Twentieth Century Europe,
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139-161. Fae Brauer andAnthea Calen (2008) Art, Sex, and Eugenics: Corpus Dlecti. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Joel Dinerstein (2003) Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology, and African American Culture between the World Wars. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. DUE: PAPER #2 Week 8 Making Normal Bodies READING: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World FILM: THX 1138 Week 9 Eugenics READING: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Christina Cogdell (2004) Products or Bodies? Streamline Design and Eugenics as Applied Biology, 33-83. Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania. FILM: GATTACA Week 10 Electric Bodies and Health READING: Carolyn Thomas de la Pena (2003) The Body Electric: How Strange Machines Built the Modern American. New York, NY: New York University Press. Week 11 Remaking Identity with Medical Technology READING: David Serlin (2004) Replaceable You: Engineering the Body in Postwar America. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Week 12 Cybernetic Bodies READING: Norbert Wiener (1950) The Human Uses of Human Beings. New York, NY: De Capo[EXCERPTS]

Donna Haraway (1991) A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, 149-181. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York, NY: Routledge.

FILM: Star Trek

Week 13 READING:

Electronic Presence

Carolyn Marvin (1988) Locating the Body in Electrical Space and Time, 109-151. When Old Technologies were New: Thinking about Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth-Century. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Jeffrey Sconce (2000) Static and Stasis, 124-166. Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television. Durham, NC: Duke University. Jean Baudrillard (1987) The Ecstasy of Communication. New York, NY: Semiotexte

FILM: The Matrix Week 14 The Post Human Condition? READING: Philip K Dick (1968) Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? N. Katherine Hayles (1999) How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. [EXCERPTS] FILM: Blade Runner Week 15 Presentations

DUE: Group Papers and Presentations

COURSE BIBLIOGRAPHY Raymond Barglow (1994) The Crisis of the Self in the Age of Information: Computers, Dolphins, and Dreams. New York, NY: Routledge. Jean Baudrillard (1987) The Ecstasy of Communication. New York, NY: Semiotexte

Harry Braverman (1974) Introduction, 3-30; Scientific Management, 59-85; The Scientific-Technicalm Revolution and the Worker, 117-126. Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York, NY:Monthly REview. [for section on Taylorism]
Anthea Callen (2008) Man or Machine: Ideals of the Laboring Male Body and the Aesthetics of Industrial Production in Early Twentieth Century Europe, 139-161. Fae Brauer andAnthea Calen (2008) Art, Sex, and Eugenics: Corpus Dlecti. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Christina Cogdell (2004) Products or Bodies? Streamline Design and Eugenics as Applied Biology, 33-83. Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania. Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter (1992) Foreward, 12-15. Incorporations. New York: NY: Zone. Joseph Dumit (2006) Neuroexistentialism,182-189. Caroline Jones, Ed. Sensorium: Embodied Experience, Technology, and Contemporary Art. Cambridge,MA: MIT Joel Dinerstein (2003) Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology, and African American Culture Between the World Wars. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.

Donna Haraway (1991) A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century, 149-181. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York, NY: Routledge.
Donna Haraway (1992) When Man is on the Menu, 39-43. Incorporations. New York: NY: Zone. Margaret Lock and Judith Farquhar (2007) Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Michel Foucault (1975) Discipline and Punish: Birth of the Prison. New York, NY: Vintage. Sigmund Freud (1932) Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: Norton. Siegfried Giedion (1949) Medieval Comfort: The Middle Ages and Mechanization, 258-304. Mechanization Takes Command: A Contribution to Anonymous History. New York, NY: WW Norton. Carma Gorman (2006) Educating the Eye: Body Mechanics and Streamlining in the United States, 1925-1950 American Quarterly, Volume 58, Number 3. pp. 839-868 (Article) Taylorism, Time and motion] Chris Hables Gray (1995) The Cyborg Handbook. New York, NY: Routledge. Katherine Hayles (1999) How We Became Posthuman. Chicago, Il: University of Chicago Press. John Kasson (2001) Who is the Perfect Man? Eugen Sandow and a New Standard for America, 21-76. Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man: The White Male Body and The Challenge of Modernity in America. New York, NY: Hill and Wang. Jennifer Alexander Karns, Efficiency and Pathology: Mechanical Discipline and Efficient Worker Seating in Germany, 1929-1932 Technology and Culture Volume 47, Number 2, April 2006, pp. 286-310 [Taylorism, time and motion Nancy Knight (1986) The New Light: X Rays and Medical Futurism, 10-34. From Joseph Corn (Ed) Imagining Tomorrow: History, Technology, and the American Future. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Carolyn Marvin (1988) Locating the Body in Electrical Space and Time, 109-151. When Old Technologies were New: Thinking about Electric Communication in the Late Twentieth-Century. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Otto Mayr (1986) The Clockwork Universe, 54-101. Authority, Liberty, & Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Marshall McLuhan [1964] (1994) The Medium is the Message, 7-21. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Horace Miner (1956) Body Ritual Among the Nacirema. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 58, No. 3. 503-507. John ONeil (1985) The Worlds Body, 26-47. Ch. 1 of The Human Shape of Modern Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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Anson Rabinbach (1990) The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity. Berkley,CA: University of California

Hillel Schwartz (1992) Torque: The New Kinaesthetic of the Twentieth Century, 70-127. Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter, Eds Incorporations. New York, NY: Zone
Hillel Schwartz (1986) The Thin Body and the Jaksonians, 21-46; The Measured Body, 147-188; The Weightless Body, 303-318. Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies and Fat. New York, NY : Anchor.

Jeffrey Sconce (2000) Static and Stasis, 124-166. Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television. Durham, NC: Duke University.
Howard Segal (1986) The Technological Utopians, 119-136. From Joseph Corn (Ed) Imagining Tomorrow: History, Technology, and the American Future. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mark Seltzer (1992) The Problem of the Body in Machine Culture, etc.., 1-22. Bodies and Machines. New York,NY: Routledge.

P.W Singer (2009) Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. New York, NY: Penguin.
Carolyn Thomas de la Pena (2003) The Body Electric: How Strange Machines Built the Modern American. New York, NY: New York University Press. Norbert Wiener (1950) The Human Uses of Human Beings. New York, NY: De Capo Gaby Wood (2003) Edisons Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life. New York, NY: Anchor

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