About
FOUN 098-62 Bucknell University
Welcome to FOUN 098-62 The Unsecret Life of Robots, the foundation seminar course taught by Prof. Felipe Perrone (Computer Science), who enjoys being called simply Felipe.
Course description
Literature, cinema, and TV from Western and East Asian countries demonstrate that those regions of the world look very differently at the future of robotic technologies. Whereas the West mostly expects humans and robots to live in a perpetual state of conflict, the East seems to look forward to robots and humans working toward a future of collaboration and harmony. In this course, we discuss and compare works like Karel Čapek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots, TV shows like Westworld and Humans, Ridley Scott’s movie Blade Runner, Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy, and Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell. We also look at historical developments in the East and in the West so that students become able to understand different cultural attitudes in context.
Classroom time consists of explorations and discussions of a variety of materials. Students are guided to develop strategies for the critical analysis of video, audio, and written media. Students also experiment with various methods for developing their own research projects and for communicating their findings effectively in writing and orally.
It is expected that students will visit both this WordPress site and the Google Classroom course site often so that they can stay up to date with reading and writing assignments.
