TTS Practice | Curricula | Course Syllabus | Winter 2017
COLI 211M-02 | Superhero Film & Contemporary Culture
Flash
Binghamton University Department of Comparative Literature
Instructor: Christopher Southward
Course Description:
What might the current popularity and ubiquity of superhero film say about contemporary culture? We’ll explore three core ideas in response to this question: (1) that the superhero genre reflects a moment in our species’ history of reconciling the human-technology relation, which we shall view as a complex system constituted by our productive relations to material and ideological tools and their ensembles, the needs and aspirations that determine how we conceptualize and activate these relations, and the technically rationalized social reality that is their result; (2) that this ongoing process of reconciliation evinces, at once, the inherently technical character of human being and human character of technology in the context of their inextricable relationality; and (3) that the superhero genre responds to our real conditions of existence in terms of the virtual and thus opens us to new possibilities for our species’ ways of being in the world. We’ll consider these ideas specifically in relation to notions and practices of body and self, the machine and machinic consciousness, cybernetics, surveillance, and social modes of production, reproduction, control, and resistance.
Course Schedule:
Week 1
Mon, 12/19:
Flash, Season 1, Episodes 1-2
Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”
Gilbert Simondon, “Introduction,” in On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects
Tues, 12/20:
Flash, Season 1, Episodes 3-4
Read: Gilbert Simondon, Pt. 1, “The Genesis and Evolution of Technical Objects,” in On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects
Wed, 12/21:
Flash, Season 1, Episodes 5-6
Norbert Wiener, Ch. 1, “Cybernetics in History,” in The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society
Thurs, 12/22:
Flash, Season 1, Episodes 7-8
Norbert Wiener, Ch. 10, “Some Communication Machines and their Future,” in The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society
Fri, 12/23:
Flash, Season 1, Episodes 9-10
Jean Epstein—“Mechanical Philosophy,” in The Intelligence of a Machine
*Weekly Journal due at 11:59pm
*Winter Break: December 24, 2016 – January 1, 2017
Week 2
Mon, 01/02:
Flash, Season 1, Episodes 11-12
Jean Baudrillard—“The Ecstasy of Communication,” in The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture
Tues, 01/03:
Flash, Season 1, Episodes 13-14
Gilbert Simondon—“On Techno-aesthetics”
Wed, 01/04:
Flash, Season 1, Episodes 15-16
Gilles Deleuze—“Postscript on the Societies of Control”
Thurs, 01/05:
Flash, Season 1, Episodes 17-18
Jean Baudrillard—“The Murder of the Sign,” in The Intelligence of Evil, or The Lucidity Pact
Fri, 01/06:
Flash, Season 1, Episodes 19-20
Jean Baudrillard—“The Mental Diaspora of the Networks,” in The Intelligence of Evil, or The Lucidity Pact
*Weekly Journal due at 11:59pm
Week 3
Mon, 01/09:
Flash, Season 1, Episodes 21-22
Herbert Marcuse—“From Ontology to Technology: Fundamental Tendencies of Industrial Society”
Marcuse—“Philosophical Reflections on Science and Technology,” in Unpublished Papers, Vol. V: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, and Emancipation
Nishida Kitarō—“Human Being,” pp. 145-165, in Ontology of Production, Trans. Wm. Haver
Tues, 01/10:
Flash, Season 1, Episode 23
Nishida Kitarō, Trans. Wm. Haver—“Human Being,” pp. 166-185
Étienne Souriau—The Different Modes of Existence, Ch. 4, “Of Surexistence”
Wed, 01/11:
Karl Marx—Capital, Vol. 1, Ch. 15, “Machinery and Large-scale Industry,” §§1-4, “The Development of Machinery” through “The Most Immediate Effects of Machine Production on the Worker”
Thurs, 01/12:
Karl Marx—ibid., §§5-8, “The Struggle between Worker and Machine through “Revolutionary Impact of Large-scale Industry on Manufacture, Handicrafts, and Domestic Industry”
Fri, 01/13:
Karl Marx—ibid., §§9-10, “Health and Education Clauses” through “Large-scale Industry and Agriculture”
*Weekly Journal due at 11:59pm
Week 4
Mon, 01/16:
*Final Project due at 11:59pm
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