HC3018 POSTHUMANISM IN CHINESE LITERATURE, FILM & CULTURE

How do the development of artificial intelligence and concepts such as cyborg and the Anthropocene inform recent sci-fi writing, and urge us to establish new values and ethics in the digital era? In what ways do Chinese film, media art, and online culture shape our understanding of identity and subjectivity in the virtual world? How do posthuman thoughts and representations lead us beyond anthropocentrism, and show us a world characterised by the increasingly blurred boundaries between humans, nonhuman animals and machines, particularly in an age of many environmental challenges? How do cultural imaginations of Chinese supernatural beings (e.g. monsters, spirits and vampires from Chinese folk legends) expand the western-centric theoretical discussion in posthumanism? Posing all these questions by highlighting technology, ecology and Chinese culture, this course introduces and critically examines a range of literary, cinematic and artistic texts, in order to make sense of the posthuman elements in our rapidly changing world.