FREN3401: Anthropocene Animals: Technology, 'Nature' and the End of the World

• French Language 2 (FREN2051) plus one or more from: FREN2011, FREN2021, FREN2031, FREN2091 OR an equivalent qualification to the satisfaction of the Chairman/Chairwoman of the Board of Studies in MLAC or his/her representative.

• Modern Languages, Combined Honours and all Joint and 'with' programmes: French Language 4 (FREN3041). Other: see Chairman/Chairwoman of the Board of Studies in MLAC or his/her representative

• None.

• To explore how philosophical and scientific concepts of the human relate to the ways in which we understand our relation to other animals, our environments, the world and the cosmos;
• To explore theories of the interaction between nature and nurture, biology and culture, across four hundred years of French philosophy and other forms of cultural production (science, literature, film, politics, art);
• To analyse how these ideas can transform our understanding of contemporary debates surrounding our relation to natural and artefactual/cultural environments;
• To facilitate scientific literacy, by using philosophy, literature and film as a way of discussing key ideas and issues pertaining to the cultural discourse of the sciences (e.g., debates on nature v. nurture, inheritance, adaptation vs. environment-making, determinism vs. autonomy - particularly in relation to biological and technological determinism, translated into concepts like automation and addiction - , the relationship between biology, humanity and technology);
• To study philosophical and theoretical criticisms of the cultural rise to dominance of evolutionary (adaptationist) thinking, posing the question of the role of the humanities in the age of science, technology and the Anthropocene.

• Topics will typically include:
• Pre- and proto-evolutionary thinking in early-modern philosophy and scientific thought, and its bearing on how we have come to relate to the environment;
• The parallel emergence of modern discourses of science (evolutionary biology, thermodynamics) and economics (industrial capitalism), and how they relate to questions of human motivation (reason vs. instinct), resource allocation (scarcity) and our understanding of the meaning of life (survival and death vs. growth and flourishing);
• The ways in which the influence of the environment, culture and technology challenge assumptions about fixed human nature, particularly in the context of debates surrounding post- and transhumanism in 20th-21st century;
• The central focus of the module will be texts and ideas from recent figures in French philosophy, cultural theory and science and technology studies (eg., Canguilhem, Foucault, Deleuze, Preciado, Latour, Malabou, Stiegler);
• These ideas and texts will be used to discuss material from multiple disciplines, spanning literature, anthropology, film and art, and the environmental, medical and biological sciences.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Subject-specific Knowledge:
• Critical knowledge of philosophical and theoretical texts giving a flavour of four hundred years of modern and postmodern thinking about human nature and its relation to the environment;
• Knowledge of how culturally dominant modes of thought have co-evolved with changes in our technological and economic environments;
• Specific and critical knowledge of key texts, giving an overview of philosophical and cultural-theoretical thinking about the interrelation of organisms and their environment;
• First-hand understanding of key ideas in the history of pre- and post-Darwinian evolution: metaphysical humanism; human animality; the extended evolutionary synthesis (ecosystem-engineering and developmental plasticity); the idea of humans being invented through technology;
• Knowledge of twentieth-century theoretical, literary and filmic critiques of metaphysical and biological humanism;
• Knowledge of multiple methodological approaches to the study of culture (evolutionary biological, Marxist, gender-theoretical, poststructuralist, etc.).

Subject-specific Skills:

• Critical analysis and close readings of philosophy and cultural theory;
• Critical analysis and close readings of literary and filmic works that shed light on philosophical debates over what it means to be human;
• Ability to apply critical thinking and abstract ideas to pressing political and social concerns;
• Ability to draw links between different academic disciplines, relating primary cultural material back to the original ideas on which it draws;
• Ability to situate cultural studies in relation to broader academic and public debates concerning the relationship between the sciences and humanities;
• Ability to draw on practical techniques of digital media analysis to enhance and inform understanding of all of the above.

Key Skills:

• Critical and analytical thinking;
• Essay-writing and oral presentation;
• Familiarity with tools for digital media analysis;
• Structuring of arguments;
• Independent learning and research.

• The module will be taught intensively in Term 1 or Terms 2/3 on a 'short-fat' basis
• It will be organised around two weekly lectures, one of which will be formal and tutor-led, and the other less so, with students expected to prepare material designed to enhance their participation in advance. (This could take the form, for example, of reading pre-posted lecture slides and posting comments to a group wiki, or watching filmed lecture material and using digital annotation tools to flag up points for further discussion.)
• There will also be a weekly seminar, focusing on the close-reading/watching of primary and secondary texts.
• The interdisciplinary breadth and novelty of the course means that there is not an established go-to secondary literature of the kind that lends itself to exam revision. Students will be called upon to read more widely and more creatively, and this suggests that the most suitable form of assessment will be one that encourages research-led learning.
• Assessment will therefore take the form of two summative essays, in which students will be able to pursue their own lines of research.
• Tutorial hours will be allotted to enable the discussion of summative essay topics.
• The first essay will focus primarily on the exegesis and contextual discussion of primary texts, pushing students to explain theoretical ideas encountered in the works we study.
• The second essay will focus more on the application of these ideas to contemporary debates in cultural politics and science and technology studies. Drawing on a rubric developed by Bruno Latour, in Cogitamus: Six lettres sur les humanities scientifiques (La Dcouverte, 2010), students will be asked to compile a multimedia dossier and use it to evaluate the applicability of (philosophical, filmic, literary and scientific) ideas we study to everyday life.
• A combined list of student-chosen essay titles will be submitted electronically so as to preserve anonymity, and written feedback will be provided on these titles.

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