This course will explore one of the most popular storylines in fiction and film, and one that is relevant to life throughout our history: humans and their relationships to machines and technology. Literature and cinema have long provided a perfect medium for telling stories about such relationships, for exploring how they intersect with and shape our lives, and for documenting how this has changed over time. Credit for this course can be applied to the certificate in Liberal Studies and not toward the B.A., M.A., Ph.D., or M.F.A. in English.