Class Calendar: March 23rd to March 30th

Monday, March 23rd (W)
• Class does not meet.

Tuesday, March 23rd (H)
• Due: Read “Liar” and “Lost Little Robot,” taking notes.
• Class: Wrap up Descartes passages; discuss stories; social critic Chuck Klosterman’s position on the likelihood of hostile takeover by robot armies.

Q: How would your views about war, politics, and the role of the military change if all future conflicts were fought by armies of robots (that is to say, if all nations agreed to conduct wars exclusively with machines so that human casualties would be virtually nonexistent)?

— Chuck Klosterman, Chuck Klosterman IV

Wednesday, March 24th (F)
• Due: Read “Escape” (optional) and start on “Evidence,” taking notes.
• Class: The “Uncanny Valley” and “Fear of a Bot Planet.”

Thursday, March 25th (S)
• Due: Read “Evidence” and “The Evitable Conflict,” taking notes.
• Class: Discuss stories; the “Three Laws of Robotics,” redux.

Friday, March 26th (U)
• Due: Begin work on writing assignment (creative, hooray!).
• Class: “Measure of a Man.”

Monday, March 30th (M)
• Due: Read and annotate “Super-Toys” (write your observations, questions, connections, complaints, and random brainstorms in the margins of the story as or after you read).
• Class: Lesson on “Super-Toys” by Bonnie.

Teaching Reminders

I've updated the teaching reminders on the sidebar with your assignments; please check there for sample lesson plans, reminders, rubrics, etc!!

Robot Soccer

And that's all there is to say about that. Hulu.com has it all!

Meditations on First Philosophy

Click here for a full text version of the Meditations. Thanks again to today's guest lecturer!

Class Calendar: March 16th to March 24th

Monday, March 16th (F)
• Due: Final draft of papers on The Martian Chronicles.
• Class: Parallelism exercises; “The Three Laws of Robotics.”

Tuesday, March 17th (S)
• Due: Read “Introduction” and “Robbie,” taking brief notes for class discussion.
• Class: Wrap up from yesterday; discuss “Robbie.”

Wednesday, March 18th (U)
• Due: Read “Runaround,” taking notes.
• Class: Discuss “Runaround”; a brief history of robots;

Thursday, March 19th (M)
• Due: Read “Reason,” taking notes.
• Class: Discuss “Reason”; the Turing test (and alternatives).

Friday, March 20th (T)
• Due: Read “Catch that Rabbit,” taking notes.
• Class: Tentatively scheduled guest lecture on Meditations on First Philosophy.

Monday, March 23rd (W)
• Class does not meet.

Tuesday, March 24th (H)
• Due: Read “Liar” and “Lost Little Robot,” taking notes.
• Class: Discussion stories; social critic Chuck Klosterman’s position on the likelihood of hostile takeover by robot armies. Consider:

Q: How would your views about war, politics, and the role of the military change if all future conflicts were fought by armies of robots (that is to say, if all nations agreed to conduct wars exclusively with machines so that human casualties would be virtually nonexistent)?

— Chuck Klosterman, Chuck Klosterman IV

Class Calendar: March 9th to March 16th

Monday, March 9th (U)
• Due: Consider posting film reactions to the Watchmen blog (extra credit).
• Class: Share rhetorical analysis; communicate teaching preferences; read and discuss “The Other Foot” (sequel to “Way Up in the Air”).

Tuesday, March 10th (M)
• Due: Finish reading The Martian Chronicles, taking notes on study questions.
• Class: Discussion and mapping of themes in The Martian Chronicles; craft paper topics.

Wednesday, March 11th (T)
• Due: Work on paper (draft due Friday).
• Class: Writing workshop on parallelism; wrap up yesterday’s discussion.

Thursday, March 12th (W)
• Class does not meet.

Friday, March 13th (H)
• Due: Rough draft of paper on The Martian Chronicles.
• Class: Peer review of papers; the continuing saga of Dr. Horrible.

Monday, March 16th (F)
• Due: Paper on The Martian Chronicles.
• Class: “The Three Laws of Robotics.”

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Don't forget that the Watchmen conversation continues! I'll email last semester's peeps and some other interested folk; feel free to invite friends that you think would enjoy our discussion. Just remind them that this is still a course website, so keep it clean, etc, etc.

Have a great weekend!