W. Hyman (English)
4 HU, WRi, 4 Hours
Fall Semester FYSP 098-01 MWF 10:00-10:50
Fall Semester FYSP 098-02 MWF 11:00-11:50
In “real life,” things rarely turn into persons. Likewise, animate beings, once dead, tend to stay that way. And machines, however sophisticated, are not thought to possess souls. In literature it is another matter: there we find inanimate objects—moving statues, talking brass heads, dreaming androids, velveteen rabbits, animated dolls, alchemical homunculi, robots, zombies, magical objects—continuously coming to life. Why? Drawing on literature by Ovid, Shakespeare, ETA Hoffman, Freud, Mary Shelley, Rilke, Yeats, Bukowski, Philip K. Dick, and others, as well as on several films and works of visual art, this class will think about why so many writers and artists represent this “vivification” of matter. What are the implications of the longing to bring mere things to life? What are the dangers and promises of such godlike power? In addition to thinking about what these stories reveal about the creative process, we will be exploring what these stories suggest about human nature. Where must the line between machine and human be drawn? Between machine and god? What are the theological and scientific and imaginative implications of such metamorphoses? To what extent are these stories meta-narrative—that is, at some level, about themselves?