2023 Fall
SLAVIC R5B 005 - LEC 005
Reading and Composition
Modern Technologies - Homo faber, Mass Media, and Artificial Life
Robyn M Jensen, Lucas Edward Plazek
Class #:32705
Units:4
Instruction Mode:
In-Person Instruction
Offered through
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Current Enrollment
Total Open Seats:
1
Enrolled: 16
Waitlisted: 0
Capacity: 17
Waitlist Max: 3
No Reserved Seats
Hours & Workload
3 hours of instructor presentation of course materials, and 9 hours of outside work hours.
Other classes by Robyn M Jensen
Course Catalog Description
Reading and composition course based on works of Russian and other Slavic writers, either written in English or translated into English. As students develop strategies of writing and interpretation, they will become acquainted with a particular theme in Russian and/or Slavic literatures and their major voices. R5A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and R5B satisfies the second half.
Class Description
Innovation in technology is often celebrated for its advantages, it is praised as indisputable progress for society. We fancy it responsible for enabling greater human capacities, while facilitating comfort, speed, growth, and efficiency. Some claim our drive for technological improvement is a fundamental human activity; they go so far as to propose the term Homo faber, meaning “Man the Maker,” best characterizes our species. While technological improvement is usually considered to be a beneficial force, many cultural figures have urged caution in our relationship with technology. In this course, we will explore both optimistic and pessimistic visions of the way technology animates our world. We will consider how our technologically mediated relations with our work, society, and each other were imagined in the “Machine Age,” a time when anxieties around an automated world took center stage for the first time.
The Machine Age, roughly 1880-1945, was marked by widespread electrification, industrial production, mass consumerism, economic planning, and personal automobile ownership. As capitalism and socialism became globally recognized forces, people witnessed the horrors of mechanized war and the miracles of modern medicine. Innovations in technology revolutionized culture, manufacturing new media like radio, cinema, and cheap novels, while simultaneously providing increased leisure time and wealth for consumption. Artists and writers forged mass popular cultures alongside burgeoning experimental forms of modernist art like cubism, futurism, and constructivism. In this course we will discover how the dreams and realities of the Machine Age were shaped by relationships with new technologies while considering how these works model our current response to the ongoing digital revolution.
This semester we will critically engage with thinkers who implicate the role of technology in giving life to modernist narratives of progress. We will read authors like Evgeny Zamyatin, Yuri Olesha, Ray Bradbury, Samuel Butler, Andrei Platonov, and Karel Čapek; media theorists such as Walter Benjamin, and Sergei Tretyakov; technologists Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan; and watch films by directors Dziga Vertov, Charlie Chaplin, Stanley Kubrick, and Jacques Tati. Grounded in these literary works, we will attempt to better understand the nature of technology and our fraught human relationship with our created environments.
This course fulfills the second half of the UC Berkeley Reading & Composition requirement. The primary goal of this class is to teach college-level writing and research skills. In addition to learning how to make clear, persuasive arguments, students will learn to work with secondary sources, evaluate outside scholarship, and compose research papers. No prior knowledge of East European, Russian or Eurasian languages, literatures or cultures is required.
Class Notes
This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completin.. show more
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completin.. show more
This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.
Due to the high demand for R&C courses we monitor attendance very carefully. Attendance is mandatory the first two weeks of classes, this includes all enrolled and wait listed students. If you do not attend all classes the first two weeks you may be dropped. If you are attempting to add into this class during weeks 1 and 2 and did not attend the first day, you will be expected to attend all class meetings thereafter and, if space permits, you may be enrolled from the wait list. show less
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.
Due to the high demand for R&C courses we monitor attendance very carefully. Attendance is mandatory the first two weeks of classes, this includes all enrolled and wait listed students. If you do not attend all classes the first two weeks you may be dropped. If you are attempting to add into this class during weeks 1 and 2 and did not attend the first day, you will be expected to attend all class meetings thereafter and, if space permits, you may be enrolled from the wait list. show less
Rules & Requirements
Requisites
- Previously passed an R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Previously passed an articulated R_A course with a letter grade of C- or better. Score a 4 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Literature. Score a 4 or 5 on the Advanced Placement Exam in English Language and Composition. Score of 5, 6, or 7 on the International Baccalaureate Higher Level Examination in English.
Repeat Rules
Course is not repeatable for credit.
Requirements class fulfills
Second half of the Reading and Composition Requirement
Reserved Seats
Current Enrollment
No Reserved Seats
Textbooks & Materials
See class syllabus or https://calstudentstore.berkeley.edu/textbooks for the most current information.
Guide to Open, Free, & Affordable Course Materials
Associated Sections
None