Calendar

Readings are due on the dates indicated. BB indicates a reading can be found on our Blackboard site on the Course Readings page.

Download a PDF of the syllabus here.

What is Sci-Fi?

Thursday, August 20

• Introduction to the course

Tuesday, August 25

• Read Blog Post Prompt 1
• Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973) (BB)
• Darko Suvin, Ch. 4 “SF and the Novum” from Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (1979), pgs 63-70, 80-84 (BB)
• Fredric Jameson, Ch. 13 “The Future as Disruption” from Archaeologies of the Future (2005), pgs 231-233 (BB)
• Walidah Imarisha, “Rewriting the Future”, truthout, March 7, 2015

Thursday, August 27

• Blog Post 1 due
• Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973) (BB), con’t
• Adam Roberts, Ch. 1 “Defining Science Fiction” from Science Fiction (2006), pgs 16-20 (BB)
• Charlie Jane Anders, “The Hugo Awards Were Always Political. But Now They’re Only Political”, i09, April 4, 2015
• Jeet Heer, “Science Fiction’s White Boys’ Club Strikes Back”, The New Republic, April 17, 2015

Empire

Tuesday, September 1

• Last day to withdraw without a W
• H. G. Wells, The __War of the Worlds (1897), Book I, Ch. 1-12
• Robert Markley, Ch. 3 “‘Different Beyond the Most Bizarre Imaginings of Nightmare’: Mars in Science Fiction, 1880–1913,” from Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination (2005), pgs 115-127 (BB)

Thursday, September 3

• Blog Post 2 due
• H. G. Wells, The __War of the Worlds (1897), Book I, Ch. 13-17

Friday, September 4

• Lit Review subgenre selection and preliminary bibliography due by 10 pm (to course site)

Tuesday, September 8

• H. G. Wells, The __War of the Worlds (1897), Book II, Ch. 1-10
• Jeffrey Cohen, “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” from _Monster Theory: Reading Culture (_1996) (BB)
• Recommended: Literature Review Sample (BB)

Thursday, September 10

• Ursula K. Le Guin, “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow” (1971) (BB)

Friday, September 11

• Literature Review due by 10 pm

Colony

Tuesday, September 15

• Octavia Butler, Dawn (1987), Part I: Womb
• Selection from Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Myths (1967), “Adam’s Helpmeets”

Thursday, September 17

• Blog Post 3 due
• Octavia Butler, Dawn (1987), Part II: Family
• Achille Mbembe, “Provisional Notes on the Postcolony,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute (1992), pgs 3-5 (BB)

Tuesday, September 22

• Octavia Butler, Dawn (1987), Part III: Nursery
• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), Selection from Ch. 10: “A Perilous Passage in the Slave Girl’s Life”
• Judith Butler, Gender Trouble__: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Selections from Ch. 1, pgs 6-9, 31-34

Thursday, September 24

• Blog Post 4 due
• Octavia Butler, Dawn (1987), Part IV: The Training Floor

Tuesday, September 29

• Ted Chiang, “Story of Your Life” (1998) (BB)

Future Disaster

Thursday, October 1

• Blog Post 5 due
• Wanuri Kahiu, Pumzi
• Mark Bould, “The Ships Landed Long Ago: Afrofuturism and Black SF,” Science Fiction Studies, July 2007

Tuesday, October 6

• Ursula Heise, “Toxins, Drugs, and Global Systems: Risk and Narrative in the Contemporary Novel,” American Literature (2002), pgs 757-764 (BB)
• Ulrich Beck, Ch. 2 “The Politics of Knowledge in the Risk Society,” from Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (1992) (BB)
• Junot Díaz, “Monstro” (2012)

Thursday, October 8

• Junot Díaz, “Monstro” (2012), con’t

Friday, October 9

• Unessay précis due by 10 pm

Tuesday, October 13: NO CLASS – Fall Break

Thursday, October 15

• Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2003), Ch. 1-6
• Margaret Atwood, “The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake in Context,” PMLA (2004) (BB)

Tuesday, October 20

• Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2003), Ch. 7-9

Thursday, October 22

• Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2003), Ch. 10-11

Tuesday, October 27

• Last day to withdraw (with a W)
• Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2003), Ch. 12-15

Thursday, October 29

• Workshop

Friday, October 30

• Unessay due by 5 pm

Return to Mars

Tuesday, November 3

• Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (1992), Parts I-2
• Kim Stanley Robinson, “Introduction,” from Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias (1994)

Thursday, November 5: NO CLASS – Instructor out of town

Tuesday, November 10

• Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (1992), Part 3
• Peter C. Van Wyck, “Introduction,” from Signs of Danger: Waste, Trauma, and Nuclear Threat (2004) (BB)

Thursday, November 12: NO CLASS – Instructor out of town

Tuesday, November 17

• Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (1992), Part 4 – first 1/3 of Part 5 (up to pg 284)

Thursday, November 19

• Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (1992), complete Part 5

Tuesday, November 24

• Final Project Proposals due
• Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (1992), Part 6

Thursday, November 26: NO CLASS – Thanksgiving Break

Tuesday, December 1

• Second 5 blog posts due
• Bring laptops to class: We will fill out course evaluations at the beginning of class
• Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (1992), Parts 7-8

Thursday, December 3

• Workshop

Finals Week

Friday, December 11

• Final Project due by 2:00 pm