Technophobia

Each new technology generates its own set of apprehensions, expressed through opinion pieces, literature, film, art, and public debates. This course surveys fearful responses to technologies such as print, electricity, radio, telegraph, telephone, photography, robots and automatons, the automobile, chemical warfare, the atom bomb, cloning, drones, IVF and technologies of reproduction, GMOs, mechanization, surveillance technologies, cell phones, the Minitel and Internet, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, etc. What patterns can be found in these fears? How have writers and artists channeled these in their work?