Course Overview

This course will run on a themed basis, taking approximate times for each section or block of material (outlined at the end of each block). You are welcome to jump to sections that interest you more than others but, in the interest of building an online learning community that is communicative, you are asked to do your best to keep up with the readings and activities as they are active. You will get more out of this course if you feel you can offer your opinions and ideas in activities and expect to get a response from your classmates because they too are working on the same material. Each section follows a linear pattern, however, again, please feel free to adjust your learning to your own preferred style; in other words, if you prefer to watch the films before doing the readings or vice versa, please do so.

Approach: Interaction and Communication

As the most significant portion of the course is delivered online, you will be directed to specific threads in forum discussions and asked to answer questions, to offer your views and, generally, to contribute to discussions on a variety of topics. Additionally, you will be expected to keep an online journal of your own perceptions of both the course material and your changing ideas and views on notions of culture and technology as the course progresses, as well as to continually challenge your own definitions of terms in the online course Glossaries. Note: Instructions on journal and glossary activities will be clearly given at specific times throughout the course. Should you have any questions regarding this, please do not hesitate to post a note in the Help Forum.

This is a highly interactive course that offers students the opportunity to exchange ideas as well as to discuss and collaborate on notions of gender, technology and culture.

A Breakdown of the Course by Themes

This is a 14 week course offered online with a 3-5 day face to face component in Denmark. The face to face component will take place at your home institution in the 7th or 8th week of the course. Details of the exact dates for this will be posted soon.

This course will investigate the role of technology as it coincides with or works against the role of various (supernatural) entities within popular fantasy culture and its surrounding genres (science fiction and horror). Social, gendered and feminist critical responses to these forms of expression (the cyborg, the witch, the werewolf, the ghost) will serve as part of our interdisciplinary explorations. We will look at different films that either slot neatly into one of these genres or, as is more often the case, draw upon some features of each genre, thus blurring the boundaries altogether. We will do supplementary readings and be introduced to some of the main theoretical discussions surrounding SciFi, Fantasy and Horror as a backbone to our explorations in how these ideas can (in)form and shape our cultural understanding of the real, the unreal, and the other.

The Course itself, breaks down like this:

Getting Started

An Ice Breaker

  • Choice Activity: Perceptions
  • Forum Activity: Perceptions

Gauging Your Knowledge and Interest

  • Quiz Activity: where People Are
  • Choice Activity: readings
  • Choice Activity: films
  • Choice Activity: thoughts on genre

* Choice Activity: expectations for this course

An Introduction

  • Approaching the Genres
  • Mapping Approaches to the Genres

Theoretical Background

  • Science Fiction
  • Horror

  • Fantasy

  • Lesson Activity: Genres

  • Readings
  • Journal Activity: Initial Thoughts
  • Forum Activity: Initial Thoughts

Introductory Activities

  • Mapping films
  • Emotions: Definition, Location, Discussion
  • Emotion Quiz
  • Emotion and Genre

(approximately 2 weeks)

Women, Robots and Dirty Dishes

The 1970s

  • An Introduction to Feminist Theories and Research
  • An Overview of Feminism and Critical Analysis
  • Journal Activity: Thinking Gender
  • Glossary Activity: Understanding Gender
  • Film Viewing: The Stepford Wives (1975)
  • Readings

(approximately 2 weeks)

Technology: The Gendered Cyborg

The 1980s and early 1990s

  • Technology: Emotion and Reason
  • Glossary Activity: Towards an Understanding of Terms
  • Film Viewing: Blade Runner (1982)
  • Lesson Activity on Emotion

  • Readings

  • Technology: The Rise and Fall of Cultural Fear

  • Film Viewings: The Terminator (1984) and Terminator II: Judgement Day (1991)
  • Dialogue Activity
  • Forum activity: An Open Forum Exploring Emotion and Technology
  • Quiz: Emotion and technology

(approximately 3 weeks)

Face to Face Study: Science and Fantasy: Creating Monsters

The mid 1990s

Location: Denmark (dates, times and details to be announced)

  • Science and Technology: a Cultural Shift?
  • Film viewing: Frankenstein (1994)
  • An Introduction to the Supernatural
  • Film viewing: The Blair Witch Project (1999)
  • Forum activity: Space and Gender

(approximately 1 week)

Horror: The Monstrous Feminine

2000+

  • Rethinking the concept of Horror
  • Film viewing: Ginger Snaps (2000)
  • Forum: Compare and Contrast

(approximately 2 weeks)

Conclusions and Feedback

  • Forum activity: feedback session
  • Module survey
  • E-learning survey

The Aims of the course are

  • to explore the supernatural and technical entities that shape our cultural ideas of these genres, gender and difference;
  • to interrogate our own understanding of terms and ideas within our own culture and the framework that it offers;
  • to examine and interrogate the various meaning and values ascribed to technology, gender and the supernatural in history and across cultures.

At the end of this course, students will be able to

  • outline some of the theoretical debates surrounding popular themes in cultural and feminist studies;
  • critically approach the various meanings and values that popular culture ascribe to technology and the supernatural;
  • analytically review the notion of stereotyping from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Last modified: Monday, October 11, 2010, 2:21 AM