Science Fiction as Social Commentary – Oakhill Humanities Project (Spring 2021)
Instructors: Claire Mason, Nicole Fadellin
DESCRIPTION
Welcome to the Science Fiction course! This class aims to introduce you to various science fiction subgenres, themes, and media types from different cultures and artists. Each week we will read a selection of works based around various themes and then reflecting upon overlapping ideas, genre, purpose, and underlying social argumentation.
No prior experience with science fiction, literary criticism, or artistic criticism necessary to participate. All are welcome here!
GOALS
1. To develop an understanding of the different interpretations and artistic techniques used in science fiction and to be able to recognize how art and fiction can create social commentary.
2. To demonstrate this understanding through reflections and self-creation in the form of a final creative project.
ATTENDANCE
We are a correspondence course. Each week you will be responsible for reading the material and writing a response based on prompts or questions, as well as whatever observations you wish to share. The final project will include a writing project where you create your own science fiction piece. Your weekly ideas will be collected by an OPHP volunteer and our feedback will be returned to you the next week. Please try to submit something every week so we are able to track progress and hopefully offer an engaging learning experience, even though it is not in person!
READINGS
The texts we discuss will vary by session. Copies of the reader will be provided at the beginning of the session when you sign up for the class, and they’re yours to use until the last week. Assigned science fiction readings will be in the Science Fiction Collection Reader while optional supplementary reading will be in the Science Fiction Critical Reader. While we strongly encourage you to take notes on the reading assignments and to write your thoughts as you go along, please do not mark in the readers. We hope to keep them clean and usable for future groups. When you have time, try to read each assignment twice; you’ll notice and remember much more for the discussions that way. If you choose not to participate in the class or are transferred in the middle of a session, please return your copy of the reader to the school office.
TEXTS
- Science Fiction Collection
- Science Fiction Critical Reader
WEEKLY WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS
In addition to the readings, there will be weekly written reflections. These are designed to prompt further thinking and to refine your own interpretations and opinions. You may alternatively write out your thoughts about what we discussed that week: What did you think of the reading? What was challenging, interesting, or confusing about it? Did you notice any connections between a character/theme/narrative and yourself/personal experience?
Week 1: Science Fiction as Social Commentary (introduction)
Darko Suvin (1972) defines science fiction as the literature of cognitive estrangement. What do you think this means? How do you define science fiction? How might Flatland embody cognitive estrangement? Do you think the story might serve as a mirror for human society?
Edwin Abbott Abbott, Flatland (1884)
Optional:
Suvin, Darko. “On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre” (1972)
Week 2: Scales of Destruction
Describe the narrative voice used in each story. Why do you think the authors chose to tell the stories from these perspectives? How does the different style impact your reading experience? Do you find one style more compelling than the other?
H.G. Wells, “The Star” (1897)
Ted Chiang, “The Great Silence” (2019)
Optional:
James, Simon J. “Witnessing the End of the World: H.G. Well’s Educational Apocalypses” (2012) Esaki, Brett J. “Ted Chiang’s Asian American Amusement at Alien Arrival” (2019)
Week 3: Variations of Space/Time from a Human Perspective
Latin American science fiction typically presents a more critical view of science, and sometimes even avoids scientific explanations altogether in order to focus on the philosophical and existential implications of the matter at hand. With this in mind, do you think these stories are about space/time travel? Why or why not?
Jorge Luis Borges, “The Aleph” (1945)
Julio Cortázar, “The Night Face Up” (1956)
Optional:
Crockett, Larry. “Time-Travel Gamification: Spacetime Looping to Emergent Experience” (2017) Lee, Derek. “Postquantum; A Tale for the Time Being, Atomik Aztex, and Hacking Modern Space-Time” (2020)
Week 4: The Future of Fossil Fuels
How are Okorafor and El Akkad advocating for changes that need to occur in society to end dependence on fossil fuels and other harmful energy sources? What narrative tactics do they use to make their argument? How do the protagonists in these two stories differ? Do you think the protagonists make ethical decisions? Why or why not? What would you do differently?
Nnedi Okorafor, “Spider the Artist” (2008)
Omar El Akkad, “Factory Air” (2019)
Optional:
Bellamy, Brent Ryan. “Science Fiction and the Climate Crisis” (2018)
Pirker, Eva Ulrike and Judith Rahn. “Afrofuturist Trajectories Across Time, Space, and Media” (2020)
Week 5: Interplanetary Colonization
What is free will? Do the characters in these stories act under your definition of free will? Is free will necessary? If you were one of the characters, what might you do the same and what might you do differently?
Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild” (1995)
Yoss, “Social Worker” (1993)
Optional:
Williams, Raymond. “Utopia and Science Fiction.” (1978)
San Miguel, María Ferrández “Appropriated Bodies: Trauma, Biopower and the Posthuman in Octavia
Butler’s “Bloodchild” and James Tiptree, Jr,’s “The Girl Who Was Plugged In”’ (2018)
Week 6: Metamorphoses
How does the metamorphosis of the individual relate to family or community relationships in each story? How does Shúa use humor to craft her narrative? What do you think of the use of humor in “A Dog’s Life”? How does Hopkinson use popular culture to distort and shift reality? What do you think of the use of pop culture in “The Easthound”?
Ana María Shúa, “A Dog’s Life” (2001)
Nalo Hopkinson, “The Easthound” (2012)
Optional:
Halbert, William Docherty “The Good, The Bad, and the Author: Idealized Reader Constructs in the Short Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar and Ana María Shúa” (2016) Moynagh, Maureen. “Speculative Pasts and Afro-Futures: Nalo Hopkinson’s Trans-American Imaginary” (2018)
Week 7: Young Adults and Technology
Dancing at the Disco at the End of the World is a play initially written for 13-year-olds in Northern Ireland and takes place in 2045 to discuss the creation of society and how cultures and cultural memory are created. In this world, censorship is the rule of law. Why do you think all writing was banned and not just computer technology? What message does the play convey about the relationship between information, knowledge, and power?
John McCann, Dancing at the disco at the end of the world (2017)
Optional:
Ostry, Elaine. “Is He Still Human? Are you?”: Young Adult Science Fiction in the Posthuman Age” (2004).
Week 8: Writing workshop
For the last session, we ask that you think about a work you would like to write yourself. We suggest the following steps:
1. Reflect on the strategies used in the readings (character development, allegory, perspective/scale, scientific innovation, exaggeration of a current problem).
2. Think about a statement you would like to make or a question you want to raise.
3. Select a form (short story, novel, play, comic).
4. Share your notes about these steps or share a draft of the work itself!