PWR 1MO: Imagining Technology: The Rhetoric of Humans and Machines

From William Gibson’s popularization of “cyberspace” in Neuromancer (1984) to the technology depicted in television shows like Black  Mirror (2011), imaginative sources play a core role in shaping our sense of technology. This course explores the ways that technology has been imagined on the page and on the screen. Together we will work with a diverse group of sources-- from graphic novels and long form journalism about atomic weapons to advertisements for the first iPhone-- to understand how they contribute to an ever-changing definition of “technology” and offer us windows into the relationship between technology and society. By focusing largely on imaginative narratives, we’ll explore several linked questions together, including the role of the worker in an industrial society, the environmental consequences of technology, and the ways technology can be imagined as both a source of oppression and liberation. In tandem with these larger questions, we will unpack the metaphors we use to talk about digital media in our lives: clouds, bubbles, and frontiers. And you will have the opportunity to reflect on the role that technology plays in your own writing practices and consider some of the technologically intensive composing practices of the writers we read together in class.

Building on the work of scholars such as Leo Marx, Thomas Hughes, and Ruha Benjamin, who teach us how to map the cultural meanings of technology through imaginative sources, you will develop your own arguments. Past student projects have included research on how the Apollo missions shaped the visual imagination of interior design in the US, essays comparing how lucid dreaming is imagined in film and in scientific papers, and topics that consider a myriad of ethical questions about AI raised by science fiction.

Major Assignments

Rhetorical Analysis

(1500-1800 words; 5-6 pages) For this assignment, you will analyze an imaginative source with attention to the role technological imagery makes in the argument. You may choose from several short sources such as Charlie Chaplin’s film Modern Times (1936), a comical critique of industrialization, or Ralph Ellison’s “Prologue” to Invisible Man, which uses a technological metaphor to illustrate the experience of the narrator. Or you can analyze a scene from a more recent text or movie.

Texts in Conversation

(1800-2400 words; 6-8 pages) At this stage in your project, you choose an issue or question related to the course theme and research scholarship that defines and gives context to that topic. For instance, one student researching the portrayal of male characters and their comfort with computing in the Big Bang Theory might explore what film critics and cultural historians have said about onscreen representations of men and technology. Another might look at how a single technological object, such as a nuclear power plant, is depicted across several sources or how two U.S. presidents, Thomas Jefferson and John F. Kennedy, writing a century and a half apart, imagined the place of technology in national identity.

Research-Based Argument

(3600-4500 words; 12-15 pages) Building on the first two assignments, you will continue to develop your topic and find out about issues that spark your curiosity, ultimately crafting a focused argument that contributes to the “conversation” you explored above.