General Honors 101

Cyberpunk

Fall 2000
Bruce Leland

General Honors 101 is a multipurpose course. It is a General Education Humanities course and also fulfills the Honors College requirement for General Honors courses. Furthermore, you may be able to receive credit for English 180. Which is to say that in this course we will consider some issues important to the humanities, develop reading and analytical skills, and write extensively, all at a level suitable for honors students.

The topic for our semester's study is Cyberpunk:

Evidence that computer technology has changed our lives surrounds us. And new advances and applications arrive at a dizzying pace, assuring that such change will continue. Industry researchers are exploring increased miniaturization, virtual reality interfaces, wireless connectivity, robotics, nanotechnology, and of course, more speed. What impacts will these and other developments have on human life and society? Cyberpunk fiction takes on the task of exploring the impacts of technology. Whether hypothesizing about Artificial Intelligences or computer chips implanted in the brain, cyberpunk novels let us see where we've been and where we are now, as well as where we might be headed. Because they are set in a strange future, they let us understand contemporary ideas about gender roles, government and economics, religion, education, language, and a host of other significant issues. As important as the technology itself may be, what really matters is the way we integrate it into our lives and our society--or maybe the way we've been integrated by it.

Course Requirements:

Faithful attendance (see my attendance policy)
Completion of all reading assignments. (Class work is dependant on everyone being prepared)
Six major writing assignments
Additional shorter writing exercises
Postings to the class bulletin board at least three times a week including responses to readings, to points raised in class, to one another's ideas and questions. All posts should observe standard netiquette conventions.
Participation. We will be acting as a discourse community, writing and talking in order to discover meaning. Your participation in the class discussion is essential.

The course bulletin board, schedule of reading and writing assignments, web links, and other neat stuff is all on the GH101 BlackBoard site. Everyone in the class will be given a login name and initial password for the BlackBoard site.

Texts

Jerome Brunner, Shockwave Rider
William Gibson, Neuromancer
Neil Stephenson, Snow Crash
Bruce Sterling, Holy Fire
Pat Cadigan, Tea from an Empty Cup
Rebecca Ore, Gaia's Toys
Greg Egan, Permutation City
Selected stories from Infinity Plus
Additional reading you select

Class meetings

Class meets for fifty minutes, three times a week. We will move between our assigned classroom and the computer lab in Simpkins 319. If we're not in one room, we'll be in the other.

Grading Standards:

While we will concentrate on particular issues of thinking and writing with each assignment, all writing you publish (i.e. share with your reader) will be evaluated on its effectiveness in its rhetorical context, as measured by the customary standards for college writing.

Office Hours

Simpkins 217	Monday 2-3 Wednesday 1-2 Thursday 11-12 Friday 1-2
Connections Moo	Tue, Wed, Thur, 8-9 pm