TOKYO INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Course description and aims

Collaboration across STEM and Liberal Arts is a new program that will start in April 2024. Students will engage in discussions with guest lecturers who are leaders in their fields. We will explore new developments and possibilities in research and science. The maximum number of students is 50 per course. If the number is exceeded, a lottery will be held. Students will take an e-learning session on research ethics in the first class. Submission of a "session-completion certificate” is required.

COURSE OUTLINE:
Discoveries in electricity, magnetism, thermodynamics, geology, biology, and chemistry as well as remarkable engineering achievements such as steam engines, lighthouses, bridges, railways, telegraphs in the 19th century inspired works of literary and artistic creativity. We will explore prominent examples of these. They remain relevant today as the moral, intellectual, and social questions they raise are still with us. Imaginative writers will bring these issues to life for us through vividly depicted characters such as the Monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), Robert L. Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and H. G. Wells’ sinister Doctor Moreau (1896). We will also examine a similar character created by the biologist Julian Huxley (1926), as well as the bizarre logic of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland.

We will then review discussions on the relative value of literature and science in education through the debates first between Matthew Arnold and Thomas H. Huxley, and later between C. P. Snow and F. R. Leavis.

Student learning outcomes

Purpose: To look searchingly at prominent works of literature, exploring the moods both of excitement and fear that permeate them. To study through these works the developing relations between literature and science and technology and medicine.

Intended Outcomes: Improved awareness of equivocal nature of scientific knowledge. Appreciation of new themes in works of literature. Sharpened understanding of influential characters and themes.

Course taught by instructors with work experience

Keywords

Fear, life, suffering, self-control, isolation, responsibility, violence, knowledge, cruelty, research, power, transformation, evolution, eugenics, transhumanism.

Competencies that will be developed

Class flow

Lectures, seminars, and free group discussions.

Course schedule/Required learning

Out-of-Class Study Time (Preparation and Review)

To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks, assigned readings and other course material.

Textbook(s)

1- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818; revised edition in 1831).
2- Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
3- John Launer, “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: a tale mystery, morality and medicine,” (2019)
4- H. G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896, Oxford World's Classics)
5-Julian Huxley, “The Tissue-Culture King” (1926 in The Yale Review, XV:479-504)
6- Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1965)
7 Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (1869)
8- C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures (1959)
9-F. R. Leavis, The Two Cultures? The Significance of C. P. Snow (1962)

Reference books, course materials, etc.

(NOTE: Full sources-textual, audio-visual, digital-for the whole course will be circulated before the course starts. The list (required & recommended) for every class will be posted about one week in advance). Our primary books include:
1- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818; revised edition in 1831).
2- Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
3- John Launer, “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: a tale mystery, morality and medicine,” (2019)
4- H. G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896, Oxford World's Classics)
5-Julian Huxley, “The Tissue-Culture King” (1926 in The Yale Review, XV:479-504)
6- Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1965)
7 Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy (1869)
8- C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures (1959)
9-F. R. Leavis, The Two Cultures? The Significance of C. P. Snow (1962)

Assessment criteria and methods

Based on attendance, performance, and writing assignments; roughly %80 for attendance, participation and performance, and %20 for writing assignments.

Related courses

• LAH.S420 ： Essence of Humanities and Social Sciences20:Western Thought
• LAH.T111 ： Special Lecture: Technology and art

Prerequisites (i.e., required knowledge, skills, courses, etc.)

None

Contact information (e-mail and phone)    Notice : Please replace from "[at]" to "@"(half-width character).

bektas.y.aa[at]m.titech.ac.jp

Office hours

The hour after every class. Other times by email