{"id":506,"date":"2025-05-17T14:34:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T21:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/?p=506"},"modified":"2025-08-31T20:19:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T03:19:06","slug":"engl-243-001-september-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/2025\/05\/17\/engl-243-001-september-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"ENGL 243\/001 (September 2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>ENGL 243\/001: Speculative Fiction<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synthetic Humans; Posthuman Dystopias<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Term 1 MWF 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u201cWe make Angels. In the service of Civilization. There were bad angels once \u2026 I make good angels now.\u201d &#8211; Niander Wallace, <em>Blade Runner 2049<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u201cWhole generations of disposable people.\u201d \u2013 Guinan, \u201cThe Measure of a Man\u201d, <em>Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/em> (season 2)<\/p>\n<p>The near-future and alternate-reality landscapes of science fiction are often terrifying places and have been since Gothic and dystopian impulses intersected in Mary Shelley\u2019s landmark novel <em>Frankenstein<\/em>. Shelley\u2019s tale evokes dread in the implications of Victor\u2019s generation of a humanoid Creature; this dread echoes in more recent fictional products or accidents of science: clones, robots and replicants, artificial intelligences, cyborgs. Such texts raise issues concerning gendered exploitation, consciousness and rights, research ethics, and fear, in the realization that these creatures are, ultimately, not human but posthuman, yet often more sympathetic than their makers. However, despite their apparent superiority, such humanoids tend to be defined as commodities. In this course, we will consider the posthuman element of dystopian speculations reflecting on the present and recent past, especially concerning threats of mass surveillance, profit-motivated technology, environmental crisis, and redefinitions of human identity.<\/p>\n<p>Core texts include William Gibson, <em>Neuromancer<\/em>; Madeline Ashby, <em>vN; <\/em>Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, <em>The Matrix: Shooting Script<\/em>; Kazuo Ishiguro, <em>Never Let Me Go<\/em>; <em>Blade Runner 2049<\/em> (dir. Denis Villeneuve), and <em>Ex Machina<\/em> (dir. Alex Garland).<\/p>\n<p>Evaluation will be based on a midterm essay, a term paper requiring secondary academic research, a final reflection essay, and participation in discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ENGL 243\/001: Speculative Fiction Synthetic Humans; Posthuman Dystopias Term 1 MWF 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. \u201cWe make Angels. In the service of Civilization. There were bad angels once \u2026 I make good angels now.\u201d &#8211; Niander Wallace, Blade Runner 2049 \u201cWhole &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/2025\/05\/17\/engl-243-001-september-2025\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":450,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/450"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}