Literature and Technology

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

THIS IS AN ONLINE COURSE. In this course, we will not only explore how digital technology affects reading, but we will also examine technologies of reading, such as close reading, distant reading, and data mining, as strategies for literary interpretation. Our readings will be focused on literary texts that feature machines and artificial intelligence as part of an investigation of what it means to be human. Reading texts like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Kazou Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, we will pursue the following questions: What does it mean to read? What does it mean to be human? How do writers represent the relationship between reading and humanity? Can literary texts be treated as data, and, if so, what are the implications of such an approach?