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DR2076: GOD, SEX AND DEATH IN OUR TECHNOLOGICAL AGE (2018-2019)

Last modified: 16 Jun 2020 15:09


Course Overview

We live in a world that our ancestors could scarcely have imagined, with the progress of science and technology opening to us the workings of the universe and new ways to live within it as human beings. Rapid technological advancements in computing, robotics, materials, genetics, biological engineering other technical fields hold immense promise for the augmentation and transformation of our humanity, but they pose deeply disorienting questions about just what it means—and what it will mean in the future—to be a human being at all. Can any of the ways of thinking about human being and significance that were held in the past be sustained today, or in the future? The intertwining of three themes of fundamental existential importance—God, sex and death—offer a path of inquiry into these questions and issues.

Course Details

Study Type Undergraduate Level 2
Session First Sub Session Credit Points 15 credits (7.5 ECTS credits)
Campus None. Sustained Study No
Co-ordinators
  • Prof Grant Macaskill
  • Dr Michael Mawson
  • Prof Philip Ziegler

What courses & programmes must have been taken before this course?

  • Any Undergraduate Programme (Studied)
  • Programme Level 2

What other courses must be taken with this course?

None.

What courses cannot be taken with this course?

Are there a limited number of places available?

No

Course Description

We live in a world that our ancestors could scarcely have imagined, with the progress of science and technology opening to us the workings of the universe and new ways to live within it as human beings. Rapid technological advancements in computing, robotics, materials, genetics, biological engineering other technical fields hold immense promise for the augmentation and transformation of our humanity, but they pose deeply disorienting questions about just what it means—and what it will mean in the future—to be a human being at all. Can any of the ways of thinking about human being and significance that were held in the past be sustained today, or in the future? Are the issues less straightforward than those who have grown up in the modern West or the Global North might assume? Can they be explored simply through scientific analysis, or do we require other, more imaginative ways of reflecting on them? The pace of change and the diversity of human experience ensure there is no one story to be told here: but our preoccupations with life at its extremes—its origins and ends, its most intimate and intense, and in relation to questions of ultimate reality and meaning—invite open- ended questioning of what we are making of ourselves, or indeed, what is being made of us, in our technological age.

This course invites students to engage in wide-ranging explorations of who we are now and where we are going by a series of interdisciplinary explorations of the human condition in our technological present and future. The intertwining of three themes of fundamental existential importance—God, sex and death—offer a path of inquiry into these questions and issues.


Contact Teaching Time

Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.

Teaching Breakdown

More Information about Week Numbers


Details, including assessments, may be subject to change until 31 August 2023 for 1st half-session courses and 22 December 2023 for 2nd half-session courses.

Summative Assessments

1st Attempt: 

  • Summary (precis) 1: students will prepare a summary (precis) of an assigned reading, isolating its argument and identifying critical issues. (20%)
  • Summary (Precis) 2:students will prepare a summary (precis) of an assigned reading, isolating its argument and identifying critical issues. (30%)
  • Reflection on a Cultural Text: Students will prepare a reflection on how a cultural text of their choosing (a novel, movie or other work) renders some of the issues discussed in the course (50%)
Resit: 
  • Resubmission of course work

Formative Assessment

There are no assessments for this course.

Feedback

Formative feedback will be provided through tutorial/class interaction and through written feedback on work submitted for summative assessment.

Course Learning Outcomes

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