English 275 - Winter, 2020

Science Fiction

Class Information

Instructor: Jerng, Mark
CRN: 43922
Time: TR 3:10-4:30
Location: 26 Wellman

Description

Topic: Race, Difference, and Science Fiction

Science fiction has historically been preoccupied with the question of how the social world organizes racial, cultural, sexual, and gendered differences. Whether through motifs of alien worlds, scientific experiments, or plots that dramatize the relationship between technology and the human, thinking about difference has arguably been constitutive of science fiction as a genre. This course will take up questions at the intersection of critical race studies and science fiction studies, analyzing the ways in which the reading of science fiction opens up new ways of thinking about the operations of racial discourse. Topics to be addressed include: the relationship between race and biological discourse of species; what constitutes the human; the social organization of human kinds; how bodily differences are reconfigured in cyberspace. We will read novels by H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Octavia Butler, Neal Stephenson, Samuel Delany, and Nalo Hopkinson; short stories by James Tiptree, Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon) and Robert Heinlein; poems by Larissa Lai; and watch three films, Avatar, Blade Runner and Robot Stories.

Students are expected to netflix or rent the three movies.

Grading

Participation and Attendance: 15%
Two 6-8 page papers: 40 %
Wiki Assignment on Reception: 20%
Final Exam: 25%

Texts

The Island of Dr. Moreau, H.G. Wells
The Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Lilith's Brood, Octavia Butler
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Trouble on Triton, Samuel Delany
Midnight Robber, Nalo Hopkinson