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Courses - Spring 2025
HNUH
University Honors
Open Seats as of
12/03/2024 at 12:30 PM
HNUH258I
Forced Metamorphosis: The "Unnatural" Creation of Future Humans
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg
Credit only granted for: HNUH228U or HNUH258I.
Additional information: This course is an amended version of a course Dr. McReynolds taught for UH until spring 2024 in the Redesigning Life cluster, which has cycled out and will not be taught again. That is the reason for the 'credit only granted for' caveat.
What will future humans look like? Will technology or mutations alter our bodies to survive on other planets? Will widespread cloning create a population of genetic copies? Even as we celebrate the advances in genetics that make imagined futures more realistic, we need to acknowledge that these impulses are often rooted in schools of thought -- for example, eugenics -- that want to alter racial and other biological characteristics of future generations. In this class, we'll use science fiction to extrapolate what might happen as the natural processes of growth and change continue to be disrupted or rerouted by human intervention. Through the lens of disability studies, students will be invited to rethink how we talk about changing human bodies and which bodies society seems willing to let disappear.
HNUH258I is part of the Metamorphosis thematic cluster and pairs with HNUH258B to complete the cluster. Metamorphosis courses will be offered through Spring 2025.