Richard Powers' Playground: A Novel Twist on Play! | Ryan Ranch

Course Description:

In his most recent novel, Pulitzer Prize-winning hard science writer Richard Powers toys with the power of play as he shuffles numerous storylines across his global gameboard. The pieces, a megalomaniac creator of AI, a tortured black scholarship student absorbed with reading, a devoted scuba diver and oceanographer, and a Polynesian artist who grew up on Naval bases, all eventually meet on the ecologically scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia. Join us as we discuss how Powers skillfully weaves myriad characters and places with critical themes of evolution, and the problematic ramifications of artificial intelligence and ecological exploitation.