American L_it!

In this week's episode, focused on chapters 3-9 of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Coach Bart and Mr. Fernando provide a brief review of the previous chapters, followed by a summary of chapters 3-9, and some observations about our two main characters (Rick and John). They then put on their Van Ness Pet Hospital Suits and start collecting all the short-circuiting Symbols and Themes, to try and get them to all of you before they cease functioning (really they just identify the themes of Empathy, Entropy, and Ontology present in these chapters).  Run-time is just over an hour and ten minutes, but if you are just looking for the characters and themes, skip to about the 30-minute mark of the podcast.

In this episode, we begin our discussion of Philip K. Dick's 1968 Science Fiction classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? As a multi-episode series, we will begin with some opening remarks about the major themes of the novel as well as the main focus of the novel. As an academic study of the novel, the goal will be to apply a theoretical framework to a reading of the text. As we continue to study the story, we will also discuss the 1982 film Blade Runner, the film inspired by the novel. The comparisons we will draw will help you arrive at a better understanding of both mediums in delivering a powerful message about existence, the state of being, empathy, and how to define what it means to be human.