The seminar examines how gender, often in intersection with race, is constructed and performed in cultural narratives surrounding artificial intelligence. Drawing on feminist and critical posthumanist theories of technology, we will analyze and discuss a selection of films and series to explore how techno-cultural imaginaries reflect, reinforce, or subvert gender norms. We will also investigate how Big Tech’s transhumanist imagination, under the umbrella of the TESCREAL movement, engages with the body, with health, with care labor, interprets gender relations, and contributes to the shaping of gender norms—particularly as it evolves in interaction with the Trump administration and its sociopolitical agendas. Special attention will be paid to figurations of embodiment, affect, rationality, and futurity in representations of worlds shaped by AI and intelligent, autonomous robots.
To successfully complete the seminar, mandatory attendance and active participation through a short introductory input to one of the sessions are required. The graded assignment consists for BA students in a seminar paper of 12-15 pages. The use of generative AI is not permitted in my seminar. To ensure that you wrote your paper independently and to provide feedback on it, a 10- to 15-minute feedback meeting is mandatory after submission. As your instructor, my aim is to support and encourage you on your journey to become autonomous and critical subjects and to help you develop your own, singular perspective on the research topic of your choice. I see no educational value in having you work as modulators, evaluators, and ameliorator of machine output. The fact that your work and perspective are still limited during your studies is in my view an integral part of anyone’s learning process.
- Kursleiter/in: Katia Schwerzmann