The course provides an overview of the scientific, religious, technical and philosophical debates on the human quest for the creation of artificial life and artificial intelligence. In exemplary readings with subsequent discussion, the course explores the question of which aspects of the topic literary texts since antiquity, visual art and film negotiate.

Literature and art in 1900 were characterised by the conflict between the perception of decline and the hope of renewal. Analysis of literary, philosophical and critical theory texts illustrates that some authors were not merely passive observers of the crisis, they also experienced it first-hand in their writing. This crisis subsequently became the model for a new form of linguistics.

This lecture focuses on the manipulation and control of individuals and the masses. The power of manipulation is based on subtle use of persuasive linguistic elements and knowledge of the desires and fears of the intended audience. In addition to a theoretical overview, the lecture concentrates on the literary and discursive texts that dispute the control of protagonists.

Rapid industrialisation, urbanisation and the unique sociopolitical conditions of 19th century Germany led, from 1880 onwards, to radical cultural criticism and calls for reform by parts of the bourgeoisie and youth. This lecture focuses on the theory and aesthetic practice of a wide range of reform movements, the so-called "Lebensreform" (life reform movement).

The modernist Avant-Garde movements are characterized by a radical rhetoric of apocalypse and rebirth, the genesis of another world and a new mankind. The extension of the “intrinsic logic of the aesthetic form into the social fabric” (H. Ehrlicher), and likewise the intensive examination of the latest technical advancements, new forms of media and their combination, unites them.