We’ve just added a new section of ENGL 109 (Intro to Fiction) to the spring schedule (all others are currently full). The focus of this particular section will be “Fictional Tech” (read on for a description), and this should appeal to students in a broad range of disciplines. This is an Advanced Composition course and a Lit & Arts Gen Ed.

ENGL 109: Intro to Fiction
The literary critic I.A. Richards famously described “the book” as “a machine to think with.” While we don’t always consider books as technologies, this course will consider the idea of “fictional tech” from two complementary angles. First, we will survey a range of fiction—historical and contemporary—that imagines, interprets, or interrogates the promise and peril of new media technologies. How can fiction expand our collective technological imagination, and what strategies does it offer for resistance? Second, we will explore the media technologies that have evolved in tandem with fictional genres—from the novel to video games—and consider how the media of fiction shapes its audience, reception, and cultural messages. How does the history of communications technology help us understand the evolution of fiction itself, and what might that history offer our interpretations of literature?

ANNA IVY
Senior Academic Advisor
(she/her/hers)

Department of English
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Administration
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
608 S Wright | M/C 718
Urbana, IL 61801
217.333.4346 | aivy@illinois.edu
english.illinois.edu