Week 9 (March 6)

We will watch the film Dr. Strangelove in class on Tuesday and Thursday (if you have some sports or other commitment, you can stream it on your own). Your two sources for this week are the movie, and Orwell’s 1984 (which you probably should have finished reading by now).

Refer to week 8 readings for some lecture material on 1984. And then this happened Friday, February 27:

Ian Duncan, Elizabeth Dwoskin and Tara Copp. 2026. The hypothetical nuclear attack that escalated the Pentagon’s showdown with Anthropic. February 27, Washington Post. (and for the curious–not assigned reading–here is a pretty good look at the company and ‘Claude’ and why it’s different, and maybe why Anthropic was concerned)

For your abstract: What did you glean from watching Dr. Strangelove, ideally related to 1984 and to the persistence of the ‘superpowers’? Keep in mind the film is art, but art made during a time when the Cold War posed an existential threat to humanity. 

link to questions