“We Are as Gods”?: Modern Prometheanism and its Discontents
Reconsidering his 1960s slogan “We are as Gods, we might as well get good at it” in the more recent context of climate change, futurist Stewart Brand amends it slightly. “We are as Gods,” he repeats, “and have to get good at it.” In doing so, he presents himself as a (post) modern Prometheus, implicitly participating in a conversation about the place of human beings in the universe that goes back to the Greeks, here taking up the charge of “hubris,” not as a problem to be disciplined, but as a solution to be embraced.
Returning to the myth of Prometheus, this course will explore questions of humanity, humility, power, and responsibility. Course texts may include novels like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle; and Daniel Wilson’s Robogenesis; poetry by Romantics like Byron and Shelley; plays like Marie Clements’s Burning Vision; and essays by authors like Wendell Berry and Robin Wall Kimmerer. Along the way, we will track shifting relations among key words that have together helped to define the figure of “the human”: nature, culture, animal, machine, body, spirit, God. Modes of assessment will include a mix of critical and creative engagements with course material, a midterm, and a final exam.
