ENGLISH 195: When Algorithms Become Oracles The Sacred, the Secular, and the Synthetic: Speculative Fiction

Course Description

Although tech culture, theology, and science fiction have long been shaped by male-dominated canons, this seminar adopts a feminist-humanist lens. We begin with Mary Shelley and Ada Lovelace - whose notebooks imagine computation as a symbolic, even oracular practice - and read Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia E. Butler, and Ted Chiang alongside scenes from Blade Runner, The Matrix, and Terminator. Set in the Stanford/Silicon Valley milieu, the course asks how speculative fiction functions as a genesis myth for contemporary tech culture: when and why do algorithms come to be treated as oracles, agents, or gods? What follows when we outsource not only labor but judgment, knowledge, and intimacy to machines? Designed for Stanford undergraduates and advanced high-school students interested in ethics, culture, and technology, the course emphasizes close reading, discussion, and reflective argument. Assessments include two short analytic essays and a final creative-critical project interpreting a contemporary technology through a feminist humanistic lens. No prerequisites; humanists and technologists alike are welcome.