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Spring 2007
Computer Science 98/198
2 Unit(s)

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About the Course:

+ FINAL SYLLABUS ONLINE +
Even newer! More improved! Sexier! Better than ever!

The Syllabus actually has the topics and whatnot we’ll be rocking your faces off with each week. And they’ve been further revised. So check it out, for the final time.

What is Cyberpunk, you ask? Good question. Cyberpunk, basically, is a totally sweet sub-genre of science fiction. But where your typical sci-fi deals with the far future, technology so far advanced as to be basically magic, or worlds so fancy and pristine they feel about as genuine as a used car salesman, Cyberpunk deals with a future just over the horizon, technology that’s practically in your home already, and a world that couldn’t be nittier or grittier. And it kicks ass the whole time.

This DeCal is focused, obviously, on Cyberpunk – as a movement in science fiction and culture; its early roots and subsequent birth in the 80’s; its influence on later literature, film, music, and pop culture; how it’s affected and changed real life; and most important, all the sweet stuff that relates to it. Read the rest of what’s here, and take a look at the syllabus if you want more mouth watering details.

We’ll be dealing with subjects ranging from Artificial Intelligence to Free Will, the Evolution and Theoretical How-To of Hacking, Viruses and Worms, Virtual Life and Reality, Crypto Anarchy, Robots, the Impending Doom of Society, Ninja, Privacy in a Digital World, Cybernetics, the Internet/Matrix, Video Games, the History and Future of Computing*, and all kinds of other awesomely amazing topics. (Note the CAPS – this stuff is no joke. Yeah, we read a lot of fiction, but we’ll get more into the substance and reality of this stuff than you will in nearly any other class you could take, here or anywhere else. Seriously.)

But ultimately the goal of this class is to give you all an open forum to talk about all this stuff, and of course the awesome stories/books we’ll read. There is a decent amount of reading but, that said, the class is designed to cater to, well, just about everybody (“normal” people and the hardcore alike).

The reading list includes, but is definitely not limited to: Neuromancer (William Gibson), Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson), True Names (Vernor Vinge), Software (Rudy Rucker), The Shockwave Rider (John Brunner), and City Come A Walkin’ (John Shirley), a handful of short stories by these and other authors, and some totally non-fictional background/ informative/ sweet essays and papers. Basically, we read the best books/stories by the pillars of the Cyberpunk genre, and then some.

We’ll also be watching quite a lot of video – things like Ghost in the Shell: SAC, Bladerunner, Sealab 2021, and Max Headroom. If you wonder how those things relate to anything, prepare to have your mind blown.

This is the third time this class has been taught (Matt convinced Steve to teach with him in Fall ‘05, with David as a student, and David bribed Steve into letting him teach with him in Spring ‘06), so we know what we’re doing. In addition, we’ll be having at least one guest lecture from our sponsor, Professor Brian Harvey (if you know anyone in CompSci, they know him – trust us). This will also probably be the last time this class will be taught by any of the original instructors, if not ever, so don’t miss out.

We can say, with all seriousness and honesty, that this class will rock your socks.

A few quick notes on the instructors: David is a fourth year Mechanical Engineering major minoring in something crazy, but he spent a few semesters learning to hate programming. Steve is a fifth year Philosophy major who spent almost two years discovering how much he didn’t want to be a computer scientist before deciding he liked arguing with people better. Matt graduated last year with a degree in Psychology and can totally screw with your mind, even while he tells you how he’s doing it. All of them have an insatiable passion for this crazy nonsense, and have been literally going insane with tense anticipation at teaching it again. The fact that all of them come from totally different backgrounds/ directions means that you, the lucky student, get an amazing plethora of opinions/ views on everything we do. Heck, the three of us don’t even agree on half the things we’ll talk about (David was Steve’s biggest, and loudest, critic of everything philosophical) – which means you get an exponential increase in the information you’d get otherwise.

How to Enroll:

CCNs and suchlike will be given out on the first day of class (which will be January 23, the second week of the semester). If you miss that class, show up to the next one. Or the next. We’re flexible like that.

We wont be giving out CCNs to people who don’t show up, so seriously, don’t bother asking unless you’re going to actually be there at some point.