The End of All Things: Technology and the Narratives of Imagined Futures

3 units

Stories of apocalyptic ruin or dystopias of oppression or of individual denigration typically feature technology as levers for enslavement, murder, destruction, or stifling social control--in other words: bad things. By contrast, utopian strategies generally arc away from cataclysm and toward the perfected ideals of cooperative social and political beneficence brought about, at least in part, by technological innovation. No matter the flavor, these narratives imagine futures near and far as spaces of radical departure from contemporary contexts where authors experiment with critiques of culture, power, and morality. But in such spaces, how can technology be both the bellwether of pacified and harmonious societies and the instrumentation of dehumanization and destruction? This course will examine the role of technology in narratives of demise and salvation as they appear in contemporary American speculative fiction texts (including novels, short stories, and media). The class will examine these narratives as literary texts, interrogating their plots, devices, and the historical construction of the genres in which they participate. Students will also study these as cultural objects addressing political, theological, social, and feminist anxieties of their time, carefully unwinding how the technological threads cultural commentary into forecasts of future realities.