Course Meeting Times
Sessions: 2 sessions/week; 1.5 hours/session
Prerequisites
No prerequisites are required for this class.
Course Description
What does it mean to be free? Is freedom a state of mind? An inalienable property of the self? The absence of coercive or oppressive structures? Such questions often inspire philosophers to develop thought experiments about alternative worlds. These same questions lie at the heart of many major works in science fiction. This course will put the two together—philosophy and science fiction—to consider speculative techniques for imagining freedom.
Required Texts
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Ballantine Books, 2008. ISBN: 9780345404473.
Erdrich, Louise. Future Home of the Living God. Harper Perennial, 2018. ISBN: 9780062694065.
Yu, Charles. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. Vintage Books, 2011. ISBN: 9780307739452.
Electronic versions of these texts are not allowed in the classroom. I strongly discourage you from buying digital copies of the required texts.
Grading
Engagement: 20%
Two Close Reading Essays: 35% (17.5% each)
Two Content Exams: 30% (15% each)
Speculative Thought Experiment: 15%
Course Format
Most of our in-person meetings will begin with a short lecture around some literary or philosophical idea relevant to the day’s assigned reading. I might define a key term or look in detail at a specific passage from a reading. I then typically organize a class-wide discussion of the assigned readings. I always have specific goals in mind for these discussions. Sometimes these goals will be identified directly in slides or handouts, but at other times I hope to convey the complexity of an issue through discussion itself. At times, it may feel like a discussion is meandering, but I promise that I’m hoping to set up different aspects of a topic or problem related to the readings.
Missing an in-class discussion means that you may misunderstand or fail to encounter the complexity of the day’s topic. This is a problem because the content exams will evaluate the formal concepts identified in readings, handouts, and slides, but also the complexity of various literary and philosophical issues presented in the assigned readings. Being absent from a lecture can also lead to confusion about key terms and literary movements. Simply searching online for a definition is likely to lead to confusion. For these reasons, I have a relatively strict attendance policy (see below).
I don’t plan to record lectures or in-class meetings this semester. Students missing class due to illness should ask a classmate for notes or speak with me. I’m happy to meet outside of class to help you catch up.
Please speak with me about any accommodations that you need. I’m happy to adjust the in-class experience to improve your ability to engage with this course’s material.
Policy on Attendance
Attendance is required in this course. Attendance will be a major component of the Engagement grade. While students are expected to attend each class meeting, each student will be allowed two no-questions-asked absences before their Engagement grade is affected. I don’t distinguish between reasons for absences. The need for a mental health day is as legitimate as traveling away from campus for a job interview.
Students who miss more than two class meetings will earn no higher than a 90 for their Engagement grade. Each additional absence will lower the possible Engagement grade by 10 points. So if you miss four class meetings, a score of 80 would be the highest possible Engagement grade you would be able to receive.
Note on Late Assignments
Assignments submitted after the deadline but on the due date will be penalized by 5 points; submissions the day after the due date will be penalized 10 points; submissions 48 hours after the due date will not be accepted. This policy applies to exams and writing assignments. Of course, if you have a health-related emergency (including psychological health) or a conflict with the time of an exam, please discuss your situation with me.
Electronic Devices
Our days are full of laptops, cellphones, and smart devices. Each class meeting will be a temporary retreat from our use of personal electronic devices. On most days I will use the in-class technology to display lecture slides, samples of writing, and other supplemental material. However, students may not use electronic devices during our meetings unless they have an approved accommodation. By “electronic devices,” I mean tablets, smart phones, laptops, smart watches, and other electronic technologies that take your attention away from the literary texts and class discussions. For this reason, you should not purchase electronic versions of the required texts. This policy will invite us to focus on the words and ideas of others. This kind of focus is necessary for the kinds of communication and critical thinking we’ll practice in this course.
Course Policy on Artificial Intelligence
We will often reflect on how AI models like Bard and ChatGPT generate content in response to this course assignment prompts. It’s important for us to understand how these tools can aid writing, but it is equally important to understand their limitations. The following principles will inform our relation to AI models in this course:
- You are generally discouraged from using AI models to generate material for the assignments. Among its other goals, this course aims to teach you how to identify successful writing in the humanities at the university level. AI models are very convincing but are rarely critical and creative. For this reason, having a LLM produce content for you will inhibit your growth as a writer. It will also hinder you from learning the difference between merely competent writing and analysis that is compelling and eloquent. Some initial research also suggests these models can impede students’ development as independent thinkers.
- There will be some instances in which AI use is permitted on an assignment, even if it is still discouraged. You may use AI on those assignments marked with an asterisk (*) in the Assignments page.
- Using AI on an assignment not marked with an asterisk will result in an F for the assignment.
- If an assignment has an asterisk, the following limited uses of AI are permissible: revising your own writing for clarity; revising your own writing to adhere to grammatical conventions; brainstorming topics; searching for sources; surveying scholarship (but not including those summaries in your writing); outlining a paper based on topic sentences you have already generated; and identifying sentences within a paragraph that do not support or relate to the topic sentence.
- Note that every AI model currently available still makes mistakes on matters of fact, accuracy, clarity, logic, and grammar. Even if you choose to have an AI revise your own work for grammatical errors, it is possible that the model will introduce new errors or misguide you. You will be responsible for these errors. Most AI models also produce obvious interpretations of films and literary works, so be careful about relying too heavily on them at any stage in the writing process.
- If the instructor permits AI use on a particular assignment, and if you choose to use AI, you must acknowledge this use as an in-text citation and as a Works Cited entry. The in-text citation should indicate the model and date. The Works Cited entry should indicate the model, day/month/year of query, and the text of the query. Here’s an example of what such an entry should look like:
- ChatGPT-3. 5 May 2024. “Correct the grammatical mistakes in the following paragraph.” Generated using OpenAI, https://chat.openai.com/.
- And here’s an example of the corresponding in-text citation: (ChatGPT-3, 5 May 2024).
- If the instructor permits AI use on a particular assignment, and if you choose to use AI, you must also write a brief description of how you used AI in the assignment. This description should appear after the Works Cited section.
- You are never allowed to direct an AI model to generate content that is then represented as your own work. Representing any AI-generated portion of an essay as your own is plagiarism. Failing to abide by the other policies presented above amounts to a violation of academic integrity.
- If you are unsure about any of these policies or an acceptable use of AI, please reach out to me. I’ll take your questions as a learning opportunity, not an occasion for judgment.
Finally, it’s important to be aware of the ethical considerations involved in the use of most LLMs. These considerations include the substantial environmental impact of most models, the low-paid labor used to train them, and thorny problems regarding intellectual property and ownership. Regarding the last of these issues, many writers and some major news outlets and media companies claim that LLMs amount to automated plagiarism. According to this view, any use of AI is a violation of a writer’s basic integrity to cite sources and acknowledge intellectual debts. I think it’s important to grapple with this perspective if you plan to use the technology.
