Restricted to first semester first year students in the College of Arts and Humanities.

Fictions of the 80s and 90s describe a future that we recognize as our present. Rooted in their political, literary, & technological contexts, the novels, films, and games termed cyberpunk are notable for their AIs and cyborgs. Often seen as fanciful dystopias, cyberpunk texts tapped into the cultural anxieties of the moment, offering narratives of both hope and despair, conceiving of a world familiar to us today. In philosophy & cultural studies, we will examine the constitution of the human subject and questions of agency. In history, we will look at the ramification s of cyberpunk-esque developments, thinking about what locked us into this among our possible futures. In multimedia studies, we might consider the ways these thematics continue to play out in literature, film, and games.