U6 - The Uncanny, the Sublime, and the End of the Human

The Uncanny, the Sublime, and the End of the Human

Instructor: Eric W. Anders, Ph.D., Psy.D.

Course Level: Upper-Division Undergraduate

Credits: 4

Meeting Times: [TBD]

Course Description

Why do certain encounters—whether with vast landscapes, artificial intelligence, or visions of ecological collapse—fascinate and unsettle us at the same time? What happens when we confront something that defies comprehension, whether through its overwhelming scale (the sublime) or its eerie familiarity (the uncanny)? This course explores these two concepts through an interdisciplinary lens, bridging literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, digital humanities, and climate studies.

We begin with classical formulations of the uncanny, focusing on Freud’s theory of the repressed returning in unsettling ways, and Nicholas Royle’s expansion of the concept. We then turn to the sublime, from Kant and Burke’s aesthetic theories to contemporary discussions of climate change as a "sublime crisis" that exceeds human perception. We will also examine how these categories shift in the digital age, particularly in relation to AI, digital memory, and algorithmic decision-making—areas where human identity and agency become increasingly destabilized.

A central theme of this course will be the end of the human as we know it. Drawing on Frank Kermode’s The Sense of an Ending, we will explore how narratives of crisis—whether in literature, environmental philosophy, or AI ethics—construct apocalyptic imaginaries. Climate change, in particular, forces us to reckon with an uncanny future that is both inevitable and incomprehensible. How does AI complicate these anxieties, offering both a promise of preservation (through digital archiving) and a threat of obsolescence (through automation and non-human intelligence)?

Through literature, film, and emerging discussions in digital humanities, we will ask:

How do AI and digital memory create new versions of the uncanny and the sublime?
How does climate change reframe the sublime—from a celebration of nature’s grandeur to a terrifying spectacle of planetary collapse?
How do apocalyptic narratives structure our understanding of the future, history, and the end of human meaning?

This course encourages critical and creative projects, allowing students to engage with AI, digital media, environmental narratives, and psychoanalytic theory.

Key Themes & Questions

The Uncanny and AI: What makes something simultaneously familiar and strange? How does Freud’s concept of the uncanny help us understand AI, deepfakes, and the fear of automation?
The Sublime and the Climate Crisis: How do encounters with vastness—whether in nature, space, or climate change—destabilize human perception? How do we reimagine the sublime in an age of planetary catastrophe?
Digital Archives, AI, and the Memory of the Future: How do AI-driven archives disrupt ideas of memory, preservation, and loss? Can AI generate new forms of the sublime and uncanny?
The End of Meaning? Kermode and the Narrative of Apocalypse: How do we structure the end of history? How do cultural anxieties about climate change, AI, and human extinction reflect larger narrative patterns?

Core Texts & Readings

The Uncanny: Memory, Repetition, and Automation

Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (1919)
Nicholas Royle, The Uncanny (2003)
E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Sandman (1816)
Instructor’s blog post on AI & archives: "Archive Fever’s Freudian Impression: The Digital Humanities and the Ethics of Cyborgian Care"
AI-generated art, deepfake videos, and algorithmic writing—exploring the "uncanny valley"

The Sublime: From Romanticism to Climate Catastrophe

Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment (selections, 1790)
Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World (selections, 2013)
Instructor’s blog post on Earthrise and the Sublime: "Earthrise and the Sublime"
Climate change imagery as the new sublime: melting ice caps, wildfires, and the Anthropocene as spectacle

AI, Archives, and the Future of Memory

Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (selections, 1995)
Kate Crawford, Atlas of AI (selections, 2021)
AI and the problem of digital immortality: Can machines preserve what humans cannot?

The End of Meaning: Narrative, Apocalypse, and the Future

Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending (1967)
Mary Shelley, The Last Man (1826)
Cinematic apocalypses: Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) & Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014)

Assignments & Assessments

Close Reading Analysis (20%) – A short paper (4-5 pages) analyzing a passage from Freud, Royle, or Kant in relation to a work of literature or film.
AI & The Uncanny Archive Project (25%) – A research-based project examining AI’s role in digital memory, preservation, and simulation (can include creative or multimedia elements).
Midterm Essay (25%) – A comparative analysis of the sublime and the uncanny in a chosen text, artwork, or digital object (6-8 pages).
Final Project (30%) – A critical or creative project engaging with course themes. Students may write an essay, create a digital humanities project, compose AI-generated texts, or produce a short film exploring the uncanny, the sublime, or climate crisis narratives.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, students will:

Understand the historical and philosophical foundations of the uncanny and the sublime.
Apply psychoanalytic, philosophical, and aesthetic theories to literature, film, and AI-generated media.
Critically analyze how digital archives, AI, and climate change shape contemporary experiences of the sublime and uncanny.
Explore the role of apocalyptic narratives in shaping cultural anxieties about AI, climate collapse, and the future of human meaning.
Engage in creative and interdisciplinary projects that rethink memory, extinction, and the future of knowledge.

Conclusion: The Uncanny, the Sublime, and the End of the Human

This course asks students to consider the limits of human experience—whether in Freud’s repressed unconscious, Kant’s overwhelming sublime, or the algorithmic logic of AI. How do we process the vastness of the Anthropocene, the collapse of meaning, and the displacement of the human by machines? Does the climate crisis redefine the sublime? Does AI redefine the uncanny? And how do our narratives of the end shape what we believe about memory, preservation, and loss?

By engaging with philosophy, psychoanalysis, digital humanities, and environmental thought, students will develop new frameworks for thinking beyond the human, questioning both the anxieties and possibilities that shape our digital and ecological futures.

Potential Course Title Variations:

"The Uncanny, the Sublime, and the End of the Human"
"AI, Climate Collapse, and the Future of Memory"
"The Sublime, the Uncanny, and the Limits of the Human"

This syllabus seamlessly integrates psychoanalysis, aesthetics, digital humanities, AI, and climate studies, making it an intellectually rigorous and highly relevant course for the Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon.

Kermode Coda

Kermode’s The Sense of an Ending role ion this course would need to be carefully framed to ensure coherence with the other themes. Kermode’s main concern—how humans impose structure on time, particularly in moments of perceived crisis or transition—aligns well with apocalyptic narratives, climate change, and AI as existential disruptions that challenge our sense of historical continuity. However, Kermode does not deal directly with the uncanny or the sublime, so his inclusion would work best in relation to narrative structure, temporality, and the framing of catastrophe.

How Kermode Fits Into the Course Themes:

1. The Apocalyptic Imagination: The Uncanny and the Sublime as Temporal Disruptions

Kermode argues that humans seek to impose coherence on chaotic or unknowable futures through narrative structures.
This resonates with the sublime, which forces a confrontation with something beyond human scale (e.g., climate crisis, AI, deep time).
It also connects with the uncanny, where repetition, déjà vu, and cyclical returns trouble linear narratives. AI-generated texts, deepfakes, and digital memory disrupt time in similar ways.

2. Climate Change and the “End of the Human”

Kermode’s "tick-tock" structure—where beginnings and endings create meaningful wholes—helps us analyze how climate collapse is narrativized.
The climate crisis challenges traditional narrative closure: is it an apocalypse, a slow decline, or something we cannot yet frame?
This connects with the Anthropocene sublime, in which human-caused environmental change produces scales of destruction beyond comprehension.

3. AI, Archives, and the Fate of Meaning

If AI and digital memory promise archival permanence, does that disrupt our understanding of endings and historical closure?
Kermode helps us ask whether AI creates new narrative structures of time—a never-ending present? A future that cannot be predicted?

Revising the Course to Integrate Kermode More Fully

If Kermode is central to the course, I would:

Expand the apocalypse/end-of-history theme to frame the uncanny and sublime as disruptions of narrative structure as much as perception.
Emphasize how AI, digital memory, and climate change challenge historical continuity and the human need for closure.
Use Kermode’s theory of narrative endings to analyze AI-generated texts, environmental catastrophe films, and how archives (digital or material) shape the way we remember and forget.

Alternative Option:

The course could still cover apocalyptic narratives but focus more on:

Timothy Morton’s Hyperobjects, which deal with climate collapse as a slow, sublime catastrophe.
Mark Fisher’s Hauntology, which explores the uncanny return of lost futures in AI, digital archives, and nostalgia.

Kermode works because this course emphasizes narrative and temporality alongside the uncanny and sublime.