History 1Y
History of the Future
Spring 2011
Professor Burke
Wednesday Jan 19th
Introduction
Retro-futurism: an overview
The construction of time
Mac Mantadon, Jetpack Dreams, all
Wednesday Jan. 26th
Millennialism, eschatology and prophecy before 1650
Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, selection [pdf]
Understanding The Book of Revelation
The Antichrist Legend
The Apocalyptic Worldview
Joachim of Fiore
Ralph Glaber, On the First Millennium
Nostradamus
Mother Shipton
Harry Rusche, Prophecies and Propaganda
Exercise: Close reading vs. skimming
Exercise: Interpreting online sources
Wednesday Feb. 2nd
Chasing Utopia: Envisioning futures, 1600-1870
Bacon, Mercier, Condorcet, Fourier, Marx, Owen and Bellamy in The Utopia Reader
Matthew Shaw, Reactions to the French Republican Calendar
The Puritans and the New Jerusalem
Exercise: Question formation
Exercise: Outlining
Wednesday Feb. 9
Fin de Siecle Futures
Jules Verne, Paris in the Twentieth Century, Ch. 5, 11, 16 [pdf]
Albert Robida, The Twentieth Century, pp. 1-127 [pdf]
Isaac Asimov, Futuredays, selection
Predictions for 1993, http://www.paleofuture.com/blog/2009/5/18/predictions-for-1993-1893.html
John Elfreth Watkins, What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years, in Varty, ed., Eve’s Century [pdf]
The World’s Columbian Exhibition, 1893
Debating the Eiffel Tower
In-Class viewing: A Trip to the Moon
Exercise: Introductory paragraphs
Wednesday Feb. 16
High Modernist Futures I
Le Corbusier, The City of To-morrow and Its Planning, pp. 5-106, 159-248
Photographs of Brasilia
Lucio Costa’s Pilot Plan for Brasilia
Marcio de Oliveira, Brasilia: Living Within Modernist Standards
Futurama at the 1939-40 World’s Fair
Clothing of the Future
In-class viewing: Flash Gordon, Films of the 1939 World’s Fair, World’s Fair pictures, Radebaugh images
Film: Things to Come
Exercise: 1st paper due: live review
Wednesday Feb. 23
High Modernist Futures II
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
James Scott, Seeing Like A State, selections
Scheduled film: Metropolis
Exercise: Discussion of final paper assignment, topic selection.
Wednesday March 1
Go Into Plastics: Postwar American Technofuturism
Vannevar Bush, As We May Think
“Hugo Gernsback: The Man Who Invented the Future”
Paleo-Future, 1960s entries
The Future Won’t Wait
House of the Future
The Carousel of Progress
In-class viewing: Design for Dreaming, The Jetsons, Star Trek, Walt Disney Treasures: Tomorrowland
Film: Sleeper
Exercise: Preparing for and participating in discussion.
SPRING BREAK
March 16
Selling the Future: Prediction in an Age of Expertise
Daniel Bell, ed., Towards the Year 2000
Exercise: Search strategies + scavenger hunt
March 23
Expert Eschatology: Predicting Dystopia and Apocalypse
Alvin Toffler, Future Shock. [pdf]
John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar [pdf]
Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb [pdf]
Miscellaneous 60-70s era expert futurisms (assigned individually)
Film: “Soylent Greenâ€
Exercise: summary & presentation. (Students will report on a reading assigned to them.)
March 30
The Future Is Cancelled: Postmodernist Disillusionment
Warren Ellis, Transmetropolitan
Goodbye Retro-Futurism, http://032c.com/2005/goodbye-retro-futurism/
Brian Feis, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?
In-class viewing: Strange Days, Futurama
Film: Blade Runner
Exercise: Genre, media form, and context.
April 6
Modern Millennialism
Tim LaHaye, Left Behind
Hal Lindsey, Late Great Planet Earth, [pdf]
Heaven’s Gate cult initiation video, Part I
Douglas Rushkoff, “Nowhere to Run” (Y2K)
2012 Apocalypse: Is It Really Coming?
In-class showing: “2012”
Exercise: Emic and etic modes of analysis.
April 13
The Resurgence of Expert Futurism
David Orrell, The Future of Everything
World Future Society
Futurethinktank
The Long Now Foundation
KnowledgeWorks 2020 Forecast
Prediction markets
Exercise: supplementing the materials through discovery practices
April 20
The Singularity Is Near?
Vernor Vinge, “What Is the Singularity?”
Hans Moravec, “The Universal Robot”
Jamais Cascio, “Open the Future”
Transhumanism
Exercise: Understanding typicality in cultural history
April 27
Is the future a bad idea?
Paper presentations & workshopping the drafts