As part of their 2026-27 Civic, Liberal and Global Education (COLLEGE) curriculum, first-year undergraduates will read Ted Chiang’s “The Life Cycle of Software Objects” and Anne Applebaum’s “Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism.”

Established in 2021 to enhance students’ engagement with the liberal arts, COLLEGE requires first-year undergraduates to read three books, discuss them in a structured classroom setting and hear from the authors themselves at on-campus conversations. 

Chiang, Applebaum and a yet-to-be announced third author are all slated to come to campus for their own discussion event, in the fall, winter and spring quarters, respectively. Each event will be moderated by a Stanford professor whose work engages with thought similar to the author’s, according to Sarah Pittock, associate director of COLLEGE. 

Chiang’s novella, which received the 2011 Locus Award for Best Novella and the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Novella, traces the stories of engineers Derek and Ana as they experience the rise and fall of a game design company, Blue Gamma, which creates “digients”–– sentient animalistic avatars with  human-like developmental arcs –– which are eventually given their own physical bodies. 

When writing the novella, Chiang strayed from the common science fiction trope that robots emerge fully-formed in their mental and physical abilities –– a concept, Chiang said, he found unrealistic.  Instead, he thought about the labor put into children by their family and communities and the long arcs of their development, and how that might translate into a science fiction context. 

“What do you owe other people?” Chiang said of a message he hoped Stanford students might take away from his novella. “[This question] lies at the heart of civic responsibility. Romantic relationships, familial relationships, even a relationship with your pet … those are all personal relationships. But there is still the question of: What do you owe the other people in society, people who you do not have a personal relationship with?” 

“The Chiang [book], like Mary Shelley’s 1818 ‘Frankenstein,’ which students are also reading in the fall this year, [is] prescient: In the age where AI can approximate natural language, we have new reason to consider the social impact of our tools on our most intimate relationships,” Pittock wrote in an email to The Daily. 

During winter quarter, Applebaum’s “Twilight of Democracy” will be the focus. The book stems from Applebaum’s conversations with journalists who turned to support far-right candidates, and discusses the role of the clerc, the public intellectual, in platforming the rule of authoritarian regimes to the masses.

“[Applebaum’s work] likewise considers interpersonal relations, only she’s interested in the ways that polarized politics can disrupt families and close friendships (among other things),” Pittock wrote. “Her book fills an important gap in Citizenship in the 21st Century [one of the COLLEGE course requirements]. ‘Twilight of Democracy’ shows that we can’t assume that all people will be in favor of liberal democracy and documents the conditions, such as social media, that can make the authoritarian alternative appealing to people.”

Applebaum, a journalist who writes about history and politics, has lectured at Stanford in the past. 

“I am afraid that some of Silicon Valley’s most famous innovations are anti-intellectual: addictive social media, algorithms that promote anger and fear, AI programs that allow users to stop using their brains altogether,” Applebaum wrote in an email to The Daily. “I am not going to blame Stanford for all of that, but Stanford is one of the places where I hope people will begin to work on antidotes to the products that nearby companies designed to prevent people from thinking.”

Both Chiang’s and Applebaum’s books were chosen based on nominations from COLLEGE-affiliated faculty. According to Pittock, at least two people from each  COLLEGE subcommittee were asked to read the nominated books to come up with a ranked shortlist. Dan Edelstein, director of COLLEGE and a French professor, then ensured the selected writers were willing to come to campus.

“What’s exciting and daunting about having a first-year requirement is that it has to serve all students, regardless of their intellectual interests, career hopes, or personal views,” wrote Edelstein in an email to the Daily.  “So you need to identify questions and topics of universal concern … Since we live surrounded by others, and mostly in democracies, COLLEGE also helps students improve their communication skills, especially with people who think very differently.” 

James Hamilton, vice provost for undergraduate education, commented on the value of independent thought through reading. 

“Reading a book rather than a short excerpt can put you in a different world, lead you to dissect and reassemble arguments, and come to your own summary and conclusions,” he wrote in an email to The Daily. 

Faculty teaching spring quarter COLLEGE classes are set to choose the spring materials later this year. 

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that COLLEGE would newly incorporate the Three Books program this school year. The Three Books program was incorporated by 2023. The Daily regrets this error.