Ecology, Technology and Anime

In this course, we view selected Japanese anime and manga to examine contemporary issues in ecology and technology. In a world of global climate change, genetic engineering, industrial materials, cyborgs, robots, and other sentient non-humans, Japanese anime and manga offer intriguing, creepy, and enjoyable ways to introduce and examine pertinent issues in ecological critique, and science and technology studies. Along with watching selected anime films and shows, we will read texts from ecological critique and science and technology studies.

The class explores issues and themes like global warming, extinction, bioethics, anthropomorphism, becoming animal, becoming machine, and other human nonhuman relations — both technological and biological, augmentation and alteration.

Each week requires extensive viewing and up to 50 pages of reading. Every student is required to submit weekly short writing responses and a final essay or critical creative project. This course prepares students for any major but particularly Film and Media, Cultural Studies, and Sociology and Anthropology.

Open online course “Ecology. Technology. Anime”.