3:35P-4:25P MWF (25) 3 cr

This course will examine gender and desire in cyberspace fiction and cultural criticism.  We will
be interested in the following questions: How have fiction writers used cyberspace to expand our
imaginations or to challenge our understanding of what it means to be human?  In what ways has
cyberspace freed us to explore different genders, different forms of desire, and in what ways are
we still constrained by sex despite differences in techonology?  What's at stake for reproduction
in cyberspace? What role does or should capitalism play in the development of
cyber-technologies? What connections are there between style, desire, technology, and
economics?

Readings will draw from novels such as Philip K. Dick' s DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF
ELECTRIC SHEEP, Neal Stephenson's SNOW CRASH, Pat Cadigan's SYNNERS, William
Gibson's NEUROMANCER, Thomas Pynchon's THE CRYING OF LOT 49, Marge Piercy's
WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME, Raymond Chandler's THE BIG SLEEP, and Mark
Leyner's MY COUSIN, MY GASTROENTEROLOGIST.