Syllabus

CS-500P-01 Biopunk!

Spring 2016

Tuesdays, 1-3.45, 3SR2

Course Blog: http://biopunct.blogspot.com

Instructor: Dale Carrico, dcarrico@sfai.edu

Office Hours: Before and after class, and by appointment. (I will also be available on Chestnut Street on Wednesdays)

Course Description:

"Biopunk" is well-known as a genre of speculative fiction taking up many of the characteristic themes and gestures of cyberpunk literature but reinvigorating them through a focus on the emerging and ongoing pleasures and dangers of genetic science and medicine, bioinformatics, biotechnology, and biowarfare. In this course we will mobilize key figures and themes from biopunk fictions to engage and elaborate transgenic and bioart practices, insurgent technocultures and lifeway practices, and performative resistance to biopiracy, eugenics, and resource war.

Required Texts:

Bruce Sterling, Holy Fire; Octavia Butler, Dawn and Adulthood Rites; Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake; in-class screenings of films. All other required readings will be linked in the syllabus online or made available to you otherwise.

Course Requirements:

In-Class Report (10 mins.), Short Scene Reading (2-3pp.), Short Issue Precis (2-3pp.), Seminar Paper (18-25pp.)

Attendance Policy: 

Attendance and punctuality are expected. Necessary absences should be discussed in advance whenever possible.

Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes:

Elaborate intersections of biosciences, bioethics, and bioart theories and practices.

Explore a host of textual analytic modes, epitome, close reading, interrogation, brainstorming, guided discussion, extended research. 

Provisional Schedule of Meetings

January

Week One | 19 Introductions

Week Two | 26 CS Lewis -- The Abolition of Man (scroll down to Chapter 3); Hannah Arendt -- Prologue to The Human Condition; Greg Bear -- Blood Music

February

Week Three | 2 Donna Haraway -- The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies; Pedro Almodovar -- All About My Mother

Week Four | 9 Michel Foucault -- Docile Bodies; Mia Mingus -- Hollow

Week Five 16 | Michel Foucault -- Right of Death and Power Over Life; Octavia Butler -- Bloodchild
PRESENTATIONS: Rebecca Kaufman (Kiki Smith) and Lauren Menzies (Alexis Rockman)

Week Six | 23 Bruce Sterling -- Holy Fire, chapters 1-3 
PRESENTATIONS: Manny Robertson (Genesis and Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge) and Lusi Fan (Zhang Xiaogang)

March

Week Seven | 1 Bruce Sterling -- Holy Fire, chapters 4-6 (Midterm grades this week) 
PRESENTATIONS: Kathy Sirico (Christina Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau)

Week Eight | 8 Paul Di Fillipo -- Ribofunk: The Manifesto; Katsuhiro Otomo -- Roujin Z

Week Nine | Spring Break

Week Ten | 22 Octavia Butler -- Dawn 
PRESENTATIONS: Can Buyukberber (Herwig Turk) and JamesKoa LamCenteio (Gunther von Hagens)

Week Eleven | 29 Octavia Butler -- Adulthood Rites 
PRESENTATIONS: Orly Ruaimi (Hayden Dunhum) and Tiff Yue Liu (Zhang Huan)

April

Week Twelve | 5 William Burroughs: Immortality; Valerie Solanas: The SCUM Manifesto; Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra -- Y: The Last Man, one
PRESENTATIONS: Yagmur Uyanik (Suzanne Anker) and Yunho Kim (Steve Miller)

Week Thirteen (MFA Reviews)

Week Fourteen 19 | Critical Art Ensemble -- Eugenics: The Second Wave; Margaret Atwood -- Oryx and Crake
PRESENTATIONS: Sean Phetsarath (Jake and Dinos Chapman)

Week Fifteen 26 | Individual Meetings about final papers/projects at the Dog Patch Cafe. See sign-up sheet post if you forget your meeting time.

May

Week Sixteen 3 4 Concluding Remarks; Final Papers Due

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Grades:

Grades will be determined by the following numerical breakdown:

97-100:  A+ 94-96:   A 90-93:   A-

87-89:   B+ 84-86:   B 80-83:   B-

77-79:   C+ 74-76:   C 60-73:   D / Failure

Academic Resource Center

The Academic Resource Center (ARC) provides free tutoring to all SFAI students on any assignment or project. Because everyone benefits from discussing and developing their work in an individualized setting, SFAI recommends that all students make use of the Academic Resource Center.

Students can make an appointment with a tutor by visiting https://tutortrac.sfai.edu (username is the first part of your SFAI email address; password is your last name). The Center is open throughout the semester (beginning after the add/drop period) from 10am to 4pm Monday through Friday in the lower level of the Chestnut Street campus (at the Francisco Street entrance), with extended hours in the Residence Halls and at the Graduate Campus. Students are also welcome to drop by the Center any time during open hours to make use of the ARC’s writing reference library, computers, and study spaces.

Disability Accommodations

SFAI has a commitment to provide equal educational opportunities for qualified students with disabilities in accordance with state and federal laws and regulations; to provide equality of access for qualified students with disabilities; and to provide accommodations, auxiliary aids, and services that will specifically address those functional limitations of the disability which adversely affects equal educational opportunity. SFAI will assist qualified students with disabilities in securing such appropriate accommodations, auxiliary aids and services. The Accessibility Services Office at SFAI aims to promote self-awareness, self determination, and self-advocacy for students through our policies and procedures.

In the case of any complaint related to disability matters, a student may access the student grievance procedures; however, complaints regarding requests for accommodation are resolved pursuant to Section IV – Process for Requests for Accommodations: Eligibility, Determination and Appeal.

The Accessibility Services Office is located on the Chestnut Campus in the Student Affairs Office and can be reached at accessiblity@sfai.edu.

Academic Integrity and Misconduct Policy

The rights and responsibilities that accompany academic freedom are at the heart of the intellectual, artistic, and personal integrity of SFAI. At SFAI we value all aspects of the creative process, freedom of expression, risk-taking, and experimentation that adhere

to the fundamental value of honesty in the making of one’s academic and studio work and in relationship to others and their work. Misunderstanding of the appropriate academic conduct will not be accepted as an excuse for academic dishonesty. If a student is

unclear about appropriate academic conduct in relationship to a particular situation, assignment, or requirement, the student should consult with the instructor of the course, Department Chair, Program Directors, or the Dean of Students.

Forms of Academic Misconduct

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the unacknowledged use of another’s words, ideas, or information. At SFAI academic writing must follow conventions of documentation and citation (6.1; MLA Handbook, Joseph Gibaldi ch.2). Students are advised to seek out this guideline in the

Academic Support Center, to ask faculty when they are in doubt about standards, and to recognize they are ultimately responsible for proper citation. In the studio, appropriation, subversion, and other means of challenging convention complicate attempts to

codify forms of acknowledgment and are often defined by disciplinary histories and practices and are best examined, with the faculty, in relationship to the specific studio course.

Cheating

Cheating is the use or attempted use of unauthorized information including: looking at or using information from another person’s paper/exam; buying or selling quizzes, exams, or papers; possessing, referring to, or employing opened textbooks, notes, or other

devices during a quiz or exam. It is the responsibility of all students to consult with their faculty, in a timely fashion, concerning what types of study aids and materials are permissible in their specific course.

Falsification and Fabrication

Falsification and fabrication are the use of identical or substantially the same assignment to fulfill the requirements for two or more courses without the approval of the faculty involved, or the use of identical or substantially the same assignment from a previously completed course to fulfill requirements for another course without the approval of the instructor of the later course. Students are expected to create new work in specific response to each assignment, unless expressly authorized by their faculty to

do otherwise.

Unfair Academic Advantage

Unfair academic advantage is interference—including theft, concealment, defacement or destruction of other students’ works, resources, or material—for the purpose of gaining an academic advantage.

Noncompliance with Course Rules

The violation of specific course rules as outlined in the syllabus by the faculty or otherwise provided to the student.

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