 #RoboticEroticElectric26 Comics, Television, Literature, and Cinema in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Fall 2026 @ San Diego State University Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 to 12:15pm in GMCS 333 Professor William "Memo" Nericcio, ECL @ SDSU |
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But while that’s a bad thing
for 18-year-old-first-semester-freshmen at SDSU,
it’s a great thing for your professor as it means
we can fill the class with dynamic new content
that drives our imagination, that embodies our
research, and that captures the zeitgeist,
the spirit of our moment, the "now" of Fall 2026. The one thing
the catalog gets right is that this is (somewhat!) a
course on Comics and History. But while we will be
concerned with "history" and "comics" throughout the
term, this class will not strictly be a history of
comics, a survey of the evolution of men in tights
and women in spandex! 
We will be more
concerned with the souls of this characters, the odd
human conditioning of human behavior that makes us
very much like the robots of old we maligned as
wooden or mechanical. Humans can be MORE mechanical
than robots! So welcome to
#roboticeroticelectric26, a visual cultural
studies class filled with comics (of course),
literature (oh no!), cinema (fancy word for
‘movies,’ cool!) and mucho mas more. Let’s break down that weird, hashtag title:
Our 16-week academic
cruise-ship tour will introduce us to visually
stimulating and eye-poppingly overloaded
storytelling. Comics masters of the 20th
and 21st century will be featured, as
will up and coming indy creatives. Artsies who
love movies, comics, streaming media, and
Instagram will be beside themselves with pleasure.
Artists, writers, and directors include Daniel
Clowes, Zoe Thorogood, Spike Jonze, James Baldwin,
Lidia Yuknavich, and Jason Katzenstein just to
name a few!
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  his is a university-level
course in comics, literature, film, art, and the
internet--as it is thematically focused on issues of
representation, subjectivity, psychology, and
sexuality, it should not come as a shock that
students in the class may, from time to time,
encounter characters, ideas, situations, images,
language, and scenarios that make them uneasy.  WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSITY! ... The antithesis of a place of worship, the flip-side of a space dedicated to faith and belief, the university is a site of questioning--a sacred space of critical thinking, skepticism, cynicism and irony. So open your eyes, jump-start your mind, and prepare to enter the choppy corridors of the always already evolving world of comics and history.  |
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 Our Fall
2026 Lineup
of
Required Mind-blowing Books!  Click each cover below the Aztec Shops Link to see the correct print edition of all the books we are studying together this semester! You might ask yourself: "should I buy print editions or digital editions," after all, the University may well recommend that you go the digital route. What about pirated pdfs -- the things you downloaded in high school and never read? In the digital age, anything goes, right? Not for this class! Bottom line: you are welcome to pursue what you see fit, but, despite the expense, nothing beats working with the best, printed edition of the book--especially as in this class you are asked to come to class with your books! Last question: should you rent or buy? That is up to you! But remember, your personal bookshelf is like a mirror of the journey of your psyche--a snapshot of the evolution of your imagination--no books on the shelf, no psyche, no imagination. The books below are linked to Jeff Bezos's somewhat evil behemoth bookstore -- but that is NOT an encouragement to buy books there, rather, I just want to make sure you know what edition of the book to purchase. It's all about being on the same page. Also, they do not appear in any particular order as I am still deciding on the class lineup! SDSU Aztec
Shops Campus Bookstore
Link
Click here to visit Aztec Shops's Day1Ready, but keep in mind, that with Day1Ready, you have to return the books at the end of the semester, and your bookshelves at home will remain sad and empty! These books do NOT appear in the order they will be used! Pick up your books early so you are not caught lacking at a key point during the term!
 Movies, Screened Free IN CLASS! (bring your own popcorn!)  Her (2013) Spike Jonze, Director  Experimenter 2015 Michael Almereyda, Director More to come! |
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One more thing
about the Required Books...
You may have heard we are living through
the age of the 'Death of the Book.'
Don't buy the hype. Just as a Biology
101 professor might scoff at you if you
walked into an anatomy lab wanting to
use your 'scalpel app', or an archeology
prof on a dig would faint if you wanted
to use your 'shovel app,' it's the same
thing here. Literature is about
books--paper, black ink, paste, etc.
A Note
About Taking Notes or Why It Might Benefit You
to Take a Medieval Approach to Learning
  You are
strongly encouraged to take notes while
attending our amphitheater-based lectures,
presentations, screenings, and celebrity-visits
this Fall. Studies
show that taking physical notes with pen and
ink is infinitely more valuable than
scrawling on an ipad or pecking on a computer. |
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 #roboticeroticelectric26 Day to Day Calendar
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Engl
157: Comics & History
#roboticeroticelectric26 Passport Wherein your Robot Overlords Describe How Your Work Will be Evaluated This section of your online syllabus documents how your work will be evaluated. Here you will find all the little gates, cages, locks, statutes, ordinances, edicts, and formulas that allow our innovative comics and history collective to thrive. Let me underscore that you have absolute intellectual freedom in our seminar, BUT to receive these awesome rights, you must also follow the serious but reasonable responsibilities outlined on this part of your syllabus. After all, we want to have a great time, to be the best literature/cultural studies class on the West Coast, even! Take that USC! Eat my dust UCLA! But to do that, we need room for intellectual play--a safe asylum within which to forge our comics-laced, history-filled wanderlust. So, then, read these laws carefully and thoroughly, so when you enter our palace of comics, GMCS 333 on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, you will know what to expect! PASSPORT
RULE 1 BOOKS_BOOKS_BOOKS BUY THE BOOKS AND READ
THEM--DON'T COME TO CLASS WITHOUT YOUR BOOK! Though we very much adore
living in the 21st century, we will, for the
most part use ANALOG, printed books in this
class. So
check out each one and buy them now! ...
an added note, get your books sooner than later
as you cannot always count on the Campus
Bookstore to get you your books on time. Also,
as I get this question each Fall, your books are
available via the links above OR, easier, walk into the SDSU Campus
Bookstore. You do not pick up your books
for free at the library -- "You are not in high
school anymore, Dorothy!" PASSPORT RULE 2 READ_READ_READ!
Coming to a
university literature/film/cultural studies class without
doing the reading is like a gardener trying to raise
roses without getting her/his hands filthy with
shit, a surgeon trying to operate without a scalpel,
a fireman without her/his ax, a prostitute without
..., ... er, ... well, I better stop there -- you
get it. Do
the readings! Do
them twice if you can MAKE the time! I know, you
are saying to yourself, "they don't make me read
in my other classes" or some other sort of
nonsense... well here, you must! Think twice about
joining us if you have not finished the
readings--the quality of our class depends upon
your dedicated work and your relentless and
independent curiosity. Without your periodic
intellectual donations, the class is likely to
evolve into a boring, even painful waste of
time.
Have you noticed
how anytime a student uses a laptop in an
auditorium there is a "cone of distraction" alongside and
behind the student using a computer? This
is usually due to said student surfing the web via
wi-fi perusing erotic delights or god knows what. I
was recently at a cool (ok, it was slightly
boring, I confess) lecture by a noted writer--as I
tried to listen to her, in front of me, a diverted
student (attending the lecture, no doubt, for
extra-credit) was perusing sites like these (nsfw or school).
So, laptops are GREAT for entering your notes AFTER class, but they will not be allowed in our lecture hall. If you have an issue with this, schedule a meeting with me during office hours to chat the first week of class. PASSPORT RULE 4 PARALYZETHE SMARTPHONE!
Your beloved
magnificent iPhone, your cherished Android, your
fetishized Pixel, or even your
primordial pager will be off, off, OFF during
class meetings; if for some reason you are expecting
an emergency call, set it on VIBRATE (for privacy,
pleasure, or both!) and sit in the back near an exit
after letting me know in advance before class that you are
expecting an emergency phone-call. Cellphones KILL
collective spaces of learning with their ill-timed,
annoying clattering rings, bongs, squeaks, chirps,
and themes.
 PASSPORT RULE 5 Charlie-Delta_Thief
In the university, plagiarism refers to the art and crime of presenting other people's work under your own signature, aka cutting and pasting copied crap from Wikipedia--definitely a BAD thing. While your professor is forbidden by CSU/SDSU code from tattooing the word LOSER on the foreheads of guilty students, he can promise that felonious students will be remanded to the state-authorized SDSU executioners. Read THIS as well--SDSU is SERIOUS about this shit, so don't take any chances! Rely on your own singular mind and imagination! Major Course
Requirements
Coming
to class for each seminar session is NOT optional--the whole point
of this class is to work together, the idea being
that we creatively and magicly convert our
classroom into a chaotic, unpredictable, and
exciting intellectual laboratory. Missing class, you miss, as well, the whole point of the adventure. So please bypass no more than
three classes during the semester--you are
responsible for any work/notes you miss when you are
absent and can PRESUME that what you
missed that day was important! If you miss
MORE than three classes during the term and your
grade will decay in an ugly way. EXAMPLES: your
hard-earned A- will morph into a B-; your
"gentleman's C" will appear on the webportal as a
"D," etc. etc. Ditching this class too often will be
as fun as a case of flesh-eating virus. During the semester, you can
expect several In-class Panic-Inducing Challenges
otherwise known as CHECK-YOU-DID-THE-READING
QUIZZES. You can expect these miserable
quizzes from time to time, the number of quizzes
depending on how many of you are nostalgic for high
school. In other words, if everyone acts like a
talented university student, we will enjoy FEW if
any quizzes during our semester. DIGITAL/VIRTUAL
CONTRIBUTIONS
You can also contribute via our own hashtag#, which goes by the catchy designation #roboticeroticelectric. If Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram remain alien to your consciousness, you can send your suggested links/images/videos to me via email to bnericci@sdsu.edu; I don’t promise that I will post ALL of your materials but I will try, however, to see that some of them make their way to the fabulous internets. What are you expected to share via social media? Things you run across that relate to our class readings and discussions--you do not HAVE TO WRITE a long essay with your postings... a couple of pointed, pithy, well-crafted sentences will do, enough to give me and your classmates a sense of a connection to ideas developed during the semester in our class. Your Mid-Term, aka the Mid-Semester SexDrugsRock Challenge, and Final Examination, aka the Final SexDrugsRock Challenge
OFFICE HOURS
And why
visit me during 'office hours'? Why not? You won't
regret it (if only to experience the madness of my
working studio space)! You are warmly invited
to visit me in office hours at least once during the
semester if you can. Here's a
primer on office hours from Cornell
University, where your professor did time back in
the Jurassic period! At SDSU,
it's easy to fall through the cracks, to feel that
you are nothing but a Red ID# or some warm pile of
sentient flesh filling a seat. In order to convince
you that the
Professor teaching you is occasionally human,
please make a point during the semester to take the
time to introduce yourself whether it be by piping
up in class, zapping me an email, or posting on one
of our social media channels. Regardless of how we end up arranging things, if you find my posted office hours are inconvenient, do not hesitate to email me for a phone or zoom appointment either at bnericci@sdsu.edu You can also call me at 619.594.1524 via telephone, but keep in mind I don't check my medieval office landline very often! |
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OVERLORDS Your Professor & TAs
 SALINAS DINHEmail: sdinh4663@sdsu.edu Android Apocalypse AGUILAR TO CAUTHEN office hours: My office hours will be on the second floor of the student services building on the patio. Wednesdays 4-5pm. (If that time doesn’t work for you, feel free to contact me and we’ll find another time!) Hey y’all! My name is Salinas Dinh and I’m an English & Comparative Lit student at SDSU. (Wow I can’t believe I’m almost graduating soon.. and as a first-generation graduate too…!) A quote by C.S Lewis that deeply resonates with me is “We read to know that we are not alone.” I hope in this class, experiencing these texts together will bring us closer to ourselves in ways we wouldn’t have otherwise. I’m originally from Yeehaw Austin, Texas and have traded one sunny city for another! I have been contemplating what I want to do after graduating and am interested in a few things: non-profit  community
organizing, education, the editing and publishing
industry, and especially creative writing. I believe
anything involving literature though would bring me
happiness. Reading is my
first love and I have every intention to continue
living a life filled with stories one way or another.
Some of my favorite books include The
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro,
The Trees by Percival Everett, and The
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki
Murakami. When I’m not daydreaming or overthinking, I enjoy reading, journaling, taking long walks in nature, trying new things and spending time with loved ones. I've recently performed a poem at the Del Mar Fair titled "Your Vietnamese Nail Lady" written from the perspective of my mother. Fellow writers... please do share your work with me! I'm so excited to learn and experience this class with you all this semester!   GARY
GOULDemail: garyjohngould@gmail.com Electric Sheep CAVASOS TO GENOVESE Office Hours: Tuesday 2:30pm-3:30pm
Location: Arts and Letters building
second floor. The alcoves next to the
elevator.
Hello! My name is Gary and I'm a first year MFA student studying Poetry. I'm a sucker for antiquated, depressed romantics like Poe and Boudelaire, but will read anything -- I believe songwriters are poets too: my first poem (maybe?) was probably some rewritten Led Zeppelin lyrics in my middle school notebook.  Outside
of poetry I also enjoy Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and stuff
like DnD, Shadowdark RPG, Warhammer, and any board
game with a big fat rulebook. And of course, comics!
I'm a long-time resident of San Diego and am originally from San Luis Obispo, CA. In my previous lives, I've been a middle-school teacher, a Lyft Driver, a Lifeguard, and had a very short/unsuccessful stint as a door-to-door canvasser. Always happy to talk about big ideas and/or trade book recs!  SOPHIA HANSENDigital Desires email: shansen2416@sdsu.edu Office Hours: 2-3pm, Tuesdays, Digital Humanities Center, bottom of the dome, Love Library GIALLOMBARDO-JAVAR Hi everyone! My name is Sophia, I’m from Minnesota and I am a Senior studying International Security with a double minor in English and Honors Interdisciplinary Studies. I LOVE to read, I probably read 2 books a week, and my favorite books (currently) are Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. I love 80s country music, traveling, cats, used bookstores, nature, and trying new restaurants. I am currently applying to law school for Fall 2027 and I hope to go into family law and immigration law!  My interests include western philosophy, 20th century contemporary fiction, global politics (especially narco politics) , feminist theory, environmental preservation, history, art (I love Banksy and the Guerilla Girls)and about a million other things. I will have my office hours on Tuesdays from 2pm-3pm in the Digital Humanities Center at the library (bottom floor). Please come by if you want to chat about the class, books, the various difficulties of being a freshman at state and anything else! Feel free to shoot me an email if that time doesn’t work for you and we can get something scheduled!  ABIGAIL JONESemail: ajones6704@sdsu.edu Become Human JIMENEZ TO MASSA Office Hours: My office hours are in the SDSU Press office (AL 283) on Mondays from 1-2pm Tuesdays from 1-2pm. Hi! My name is Abigail Jones, a first year student in the MALAS grad program. In my undergrad, I studied English and Linguistics which gave me a wide view of language and how we use it to communicate stories. In my first college-level literature course (which was with Bill!), we were told that literature is the “pulse of the times” and I believe that we can learn from the past to improve our future. I hope that you all will find similar meaning in the novels we read in class this semester and the conversations we have analyzing the text.  I
came to San Diego in 2019 from a small town in
Northern California, where my schooling was focused on
milking cows and gold panning. In my free time I, of course, love to read. Although I’ve gotten to read and analyze amazing novels in the literary canon, my favorite books will always be The Infernal Devices. If you see me on campus with my headphones in, chances are I am listening to those on audiobook! I can be found at most concerts in the San Diego and LA area, stressing over how bad Oscar Piastri’s car is this season, or bothering my cat, Pete. My office hours will be in the SDSU Press office (AL 283) on Mondays from 1-2pm Tuesdays from 1-2pm. Feel free to come by or email me if you need to set up a time outside of those hours!  JAS
LARAemail: jhuertalara4235@sdsu.edu THE FLOPPY DISKS Office hours: Wednesdays, 1:00–2:00, on the second-floor patio behind the Administration building MATEO TO PHRANG  Hi, my name is Jas! I’m a first-year graduate student in the Master of Liberal Arts and Studies program. I focus on creative writing through short stories, flash fiction, and screenplays, and I love writing about family and platonic love. I am working on a coming-of-age novel for my thesis. When I’m not on campus, I’m usually indoor cycling or out on a trail bike. Right now my favorite shows are Mythic Quest, The Penguin, House of the Dragon, Futurama, Rick and Morty, Fleabag (season 2), and Girls. My favorite video game at the moment is Cyberpunk 2077.
I’m excited to work with you!  Jacob Suarezemail: jsuarez6585@sdsu.edu Synthetic Errors My office hours will be on Thursdays right after class from 1:00–2:00 p.m. in the Arts and Letters Building PHUNG TO SCOTT Hi everyone! My name is Jacob, and I’m a second-year MFA Fiction graduate student at SDSU, where I also earned my bachelor’s in English Literature. I’m a born-and-raised San Diegan. My hobbies range from hiking, surfing, tennis, and soccer to Muay Thai. I’m an amateur fighter and (fun fact) won the 2021 US Muay Thai Open Tournament in Phoenix, Arizona. Aside from getting punched, as you may have guessed, I also love to read. Because of one of my favorite books, Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, I’ve made it a tradition to travel to Pamplona every few years to participate in the Running of the Bulls. I’m about to do it for the third time. In recent years, my writing has drawn inspiration from a variety of writers, people, and events, but lately I’ve been especially interested in the effects combat sports can have on people, both mentally and physically (CTE, broken bones, trauma, and the ways fighters continue despite them).  I find it fitting to be part of this class because technology is evolving faster than we sometimes know how to handle, always pushing toward something faster, smarter, and more perfect, much like a fighter constantly trying to improve. I really appreciate the way Bill is approaching robots, synthetics, and uncanny technology in this course, especially as a way to think about what these technologies reflect back at us about human behavior and desire. My office hours will be on Thursdays right after class from 1:00–2:00 p.m. in the Arts and Letters Building. If that time doesn’t work for you, feel free to email me and we’ll find a better time. Let’s chat!  Bill
Nericcioemail: bnericci@sdsu.edu Android Analysts office hours: Tuesdays after class till around 4pm-- and by appointment, write me! I lurk with cyborgs and androids in Arts and Letters 273! SHANNON TO ZELAKIEWICZ There are professors whose careers resemble ladders, and others whose careers resemble libraries. William Nericcio’s is closer to a hall of mirrors somewhere between Laredo and Tijuana, with a Warner Bros. cartoon playing in one room and Borges quietly rearranging the furniture in another. Born on the border, trained at the University of Texas and Cornell, Nericcio arrived at San Diego State in 1991 and proceeded to behave as though the university’s departments were merely provisional suggestions. English, comparative literature, Chicana/o studies, Latin American studies, cultural studies, comics, digital humanities, publishing: he crossed among them with the impolite ease of someone who had noticed that borders, academic or national, become most interesting precisely when they fail.  His central
subject has been the Mexican as apparition in the
American imagination—the sombrero, the bandit, the
bombshell, the cartoon mouse, the cinematic
greaser: an encyclopedia of distortions that
America repeatedly mistakes for knowledge. In
Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the
“Mexican” in America, Nericcio treated these
images not simply as stereotypes but as ghosts
with economic and erotic lives of their own.
Meanwhile, another Nericcio appeared: publisher,
designer, curator, impresario. Through SDSU Press
and a succession of exhibitions, books, Web
projects, and pedagogical contraptions,
scholarship became something closer to a cabinet
of curiosities. One suspects that Nericcio’s
real discipline has never been literature. It is
misrecognition: the study of what happens when one
culture dreams another into existence. Some
professors defend their fields. Nericcio keeps
finding trapdoors in his. Nericcio adores cats -- was kind of raised with the beasts. His friend, Slammy Davis Jr. appears opposite; he also haunts social media at #slammydavisjrsd |
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 Communications Archiveundergrads! https://sdsu.instructure.com/courses/210937/announcements grad kids! https://sdsu.instructure.com/courses/213021/announcements |
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The ROBOTIC: As we are
living in and through the AGE OF BOTS where AI
threatens to take our jobs, life, imagination (and
all this in a thunderstorm of digital 
.jpg)
When
you enter GMCS 333 Tuesdays and Thursdays for class
you will have FINISHED 
Yes, the trauma of that
delayed text, yes, the horror of that missed
hook-up call, yes, the loss of the buzz of that
random Tinder swipe will no doubt doom you to
years and years on an psychoanalyst's couch, but
we, the rest of us, will gain some silence, a kind
of sanctuary without which ideas wither on the
vine. We are NOT joking about this unthinkable
edict! Don't
end up like this former student from another Engl
157 I taught back in the day: 
Our main social media site for this
class, Facebook-based, is located 
