model assignments

e-texts & research links

Prof. White's home page

Course Texts

Scriptural texts: esp. Genesis (Creation) and Revelation (Apocalypse)

H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895)

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993)

Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias, ed. K. S. Robinson (1994)

Virtually Now: Stories of Science, Technology and the Future, ed. J. Schinto (1996)

+ online texts & email handouts—see reading schedule below

Graded Work
Reading quizzes (app. 10%, more if results are far below average.)
Pre-Midterm (start Essay 1 + Essay 2 research proposal; 22-24 February, 20%?)
Midterm (In-class or email, 27 March; 30-40%)
Final Exam (8 May, email deadline 9 May.; 40-50%)
Grades are not computed mathematically; percentages indicate only assignments' approximate relative weight. Only letter grades are given. Pluses and minuses may appear on component and final grades.

Class Presentations, participation, attendance (app. 10-20%, graded silently)
Future-Vision Presentation
Discussion-Starter
Model Assignments Highlights
Class preparation and participation

Attendance: One free cut allowed without comment or penalty. Two or more absences or partial absences, even with good excuses, lower final grade, potentially seriously.

Final grade report

Course policies

Wednesday, 23 January

Readings:  Preview Scriptural Texts of Creation & Apocalypse

terms: decline or progress

Carl Orff, from Carmina Burana

symbols and narratives; genres; romance narrative; terms

Agenda:

welcome, syllabus, website, daily windows, time
review assignments; (LITR 4368 syllabus fall 2017)
handout for ID & presentation preferences (return at break or end)
Presentations for next Wednesday? > email later this week
[break]
critical terms: symbols and narratives > genres, romance narrative
midterm > 3 narratives (obj. 1); nature of time > narratives
preview next week's texts & discussion questions

Default questions for every class:

1. Gender:

2. Family identities and relations:

3.

Wednesday, 30 January: Apocalyptic scriptures

Readings: Read through Scriptural Texts of Creation & Apocalypse

terms: Millennium / Apocalypse, prophecy, sublime, symbol

Discussion-starter:  Eric Cheney

Future-vision presenter: instructor

Model Assignments Highlights (pre-midterms): instructor

Agenda: emails, presentations + info sheets, Assign Parable of the Sower;

creation or origin story / Millennialism

symbols & narratives; dystopia > millennium > utopia;

decline or progress?

future-vision: instructor Carl Orff, from Carmina Burana; Beethoven, Ode to Joy; flashmob Ode

Reading quiz on reading assignments

[break]

Teaching religion as literature

Discussion-starter:  Eric

romance narrative

web-highlight: Pre- & Midterm assignments, Model Assignments (developing your essay, using terms)

Challenge to reading: Not many people read the Bible as though it were a literary text like a novel—most read it more like a reference book like a dictionary or a self-help book. You probably won't read every word of Genesis and Revelation, but try to see what kinds of stories (narratives) they're telling and how we identify (or identify with) their symbols. You'll get a reading quiz for the assignment with broad-enough questions.

Discussion Questions:

1. Creation-Apocalypse narratives exemplify the linear model of time, but what parts of today's apocalyptic texts suggest a more complex model or dimensions beyond "Point A to Point B?"

2. Narrative genres: How does the plot-pattern of Revelation resemble the plot narrative of a romance? Pay attention to the gradual revelation of the central character of Jesus—how does he appear? How is he like a hero in a romance-rescue story? How are the Satanic figures like the villain?

3. Symbols are among the most striking and obvious devices of prophecy and apocalyptic literature, e.g. popular references to "666," "The Beast," "Anti-Christ," "The Whore of Babylon," "Signs in the Heavens," etc. What can we learn about symbols' functions in literature generally from their power in apocalyptic literature? How may religious literature help students understand the operation of symbols in human language, thought, and society?

Special questions for End-Times literature and reading or teaching scripture as literature. (We can't get to all of these, but they suggest millennial literature's many points of interest for literary and cultural criticism.)

4. If Revelation and other apocalyptic texts are among the most popular parts of the Bible, why? What literary appeals? (<in contrast to appeals to faith, religious belief, etc.) How does Revelation seem different from other Biblical or scriptural texts like the Gospels? (Eastern Orthodox churches don't include Revelation in the Bible.)

5. What impulses for social or personal change, or what social consequences, result from apocalyptic texts and thought? How does apocalyptic thinking influence attitudes toward decline or progress?

6. Jesus was crucified around 30-36AD, and the Book of Revelation was written between 70 and 95AD. Matthew 24.34 records Jesus saying, "This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." What social or evolutionary consequences to perennial belief that "ours is the last generation?"

Added question: Apocalyptic thinking and literature are always popular to some degree, but why are Millennials naturally fascinated by apocalyptic films (alien invasion, zombie apocalypse), post-apocalyptic romance narratives (young adulty dystopias like Hunger Games, Maze Runners, The Giver), and more traditional scriptural apocalypses (Left Behind series, + ISIS jihadism is apocalyptic-cultish).

Wednesday, 6 February

Readings: Parable of the Sower (read app. half, at least through chapter 14 or p. 166)

optional reading: brief bio of Octavia Butler (pre-mortem [2006]) &

interview with Octavia Butler

Octavia Butler obituary 2006

Discussion-starter: Tim Doherty

Future-vision presenter: Amanda Cowart (Repo! The Genetic Opera)

Agenda: presentations, pre-midterm & midterm
Question 1a, 1c re fiction [millennium]

science fiction; hard, soft > speculative fiction

future-vision: Amanda

quiz

[break]

discussion:  Tim

creation / apocalypse & evolution

assignments

Discussion Questions: 1. Compare Parable to Revelation. How are both apocalyptic? How are the opening chapters also like a creation or origin story? Compare to Genesis?

1.a. Describe Parable of the Sower as science fiction or speculative fiction. (Compare / contrast Genesis, Revelation, etc. as scripture—status, prestige, authority, etc.)

1b. As science fiction or speculative fiction, how does Parable incorporate evolution? What familiar assumptions, terms, or metaphors do characters speak that identify an evolutionary mentality? (For instance, human behavior as survival, change, adaptation? Contrast to sin and virtue, or faith vs. lack of faith?)

1c. Science fiction is not just science but also fiction (see genres): How is Parable fictional in representational form, and how is its narrative romance? (instructor will lead)

1d. Lauren also develops her own theology—compare, contrast her father's Baptist faith? (Both use aphorisms and parables, both predict future?)

2. Compare biblical apocalypse and environmental apocalypse?

3. Compare Parable of the Sower (1993) with more recent YA dystopia / post-apocalyptic novels like The Hunger Games (2006-10) and other young adult dystopias?

4. How has science fiction / speculative fiction reinforced or challenged traditional gender and racial identities? In Parable of the Sower, how does Lauren's persona represent evolving gender modalities in science / speculative fiction (esp. YA dystopias, e.g. Katniss in The Hunger Games) or even classic literature?

Wednesday, 13 February: apocalypse and evolution

Readings: Parable of the Sower (complete)

Discussion-starter: Eileen Burnett

Future-vision presenter: Audrey Lange

Instructor's presentation: Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents (1998)

Agenda: assignments; pre-midterm & web resources

scripture / prophecy, science fiction & subgenres; preview Butler later in semester + Parable of Talents

quiz

[short break]

discussion: Eileen

[short break]

future vision: Audrey

Discussion Questions: 1. Continue comparisons with Genesis / Revelation and other apocalyptic texts. Does Lauren qualify as a "prophet?" Earthseed as prophecy? Earthseed community as utopia? (cf. heaven at end of Revelation)

2. Discuss blending of apocalypse and evolution in Parable of Sower (and later texts like Time Machine).

2a. How are both present? How account for co-presence instead of mutual exclusion?

2b. Where do apocalypse and evolution diverge? Where do they meet? Can you reconcile seeing the world as both apocalypse and evolution, rather than one excluding the other? If so, how?

2c. What are the signs, symbols, or keywords of creation-apocalypse and evolution?

3. Broadly, how does Parable of the Sower succeed (or not) in making you care about the future? Or does it just make you want to buy guns, hoard gold, hide, and distrust anyone who's not in your family or church?

4. Science fiction and many other forms of popular literature do not age well. Parable of the Sower is now 20+ years old. How out of date is it already? How much closer are we to its time-frame? If the novel survives and remains readable and interesting, why? What literary qualities make it somewhat timeless or classic?

5. Compare Parable of the Sower (1993) with more recent YA dystopia / post-apocalyptic novels like The Hunger Games (2006-10) and other young adult dystopias?

6. How has science fiction / speculative fiction reinforced or challenged traditional gender and racial identities? In Parable of the Sower, how does Lauren's persona represent evolving gender modalities in science / speculative fiction (esp. YA dystopias, e.g. Katniss in The Hunger Games) or even classic literature?

Wednesday, 20 February

Readings: "Stone Lives" (email PDF) and "Bears Discover Fire" (FP 17-28)

Discussion-starter: Zachariah Gandin ("Stone Lives"); Oneydy Alonzo "Bears Discover Fire"

Future-vision presenter: Lucero Nguyen

Model Assignments Highlights (pre-midterms): instructor

Agenda: pre-midterm + models; narrative, symbols, metaphors obj. 3

evolution

Parable of Sower as evolution / creation-apocalypse

 quiz

[short break]

"Bears Discover Fire" discussion: Oneydy

future-vision: Lucero

[short break] 

"Stone Lives" discussion: instructor

Time Machine assignments

Discussion Questions: 1. What key terms, symbols, or ways of thinking signal that these stories operate in a world built on evolutionary premises? (Consider terms or ideas like change, adaptation, , extinction, survival, + plenty of animal characters and symbols.)

1a. How is "Stone Lives" potentially apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic? How are its apparent apocalypses or catastrophes absorbed into a larger evolutionary narrative?

2. What picture of humanity do these stories (and evolutionary models) create? What assumptions about how nature, time, and society are organized, esp. in contrast to creation-apocalypse?

3. Preview high tech / low tech scenarios (13 & 20 Nov.): Are "Stone Lives" & "Bears" high tech or low tech sf? What different appeals?

4. "Stone Lives" is our most typical popular-literature, old-fashioned science fiction story all semester—How? Discuss formulaic gender, depiction of world, and esp. romance narrative (esp. macho-superhero protagonist tasked with saving a pre- or post-apocalyptic scene while babes swoon and die).

5. "Bears" is an unusually humorous sf story—how? What makes it amusing? Consider low tech + How does its narrative fit the definition of comedy? How may humor or comedy serve science fiction's function of making science familiar or comfortable to non-scientific readers? (comic theory)

Wednesday, 27 February

Readings: "Somebody up there Likes Me" (VN 208-237); begin The Time Machine (through ch. 5).

Discussion-starter: Christopher Carlson (Time Machine)

Future-vision presenter: Andrea Gerlach

Agenda: premidterm updates, proposal topics, schedule, midterm

assignments (Jacob, Ruth) / Mozart handouts / transition to alternative futures

presentation: Andrea

quiz > break

Time Machine discussion Christopher / Somebody : instructor?

evolutionary signs & narratives (obj. 1)

Kindred; Minority Literature > Dr. Klett in fall

Discussion Questions:

1. Science fiction has built-in problems as classic literature, but H. G. Wells maintains status and influence as the greatest "classic" science fiction writer. What qualities distinguish his style? What models does he create for science fiction in terms of style, action, and character? What mix of science and fiction? Compare to Parable of the Sower?

2. The Time Machine was written in 1895, a generation after Darwin's Origin of Species (1859): What signs, terms, or symbols of evolution in Time Machine? Is its plot evolutionary or apocalyptic?

3. Evolution as progress or decline? How does changing the time scale (from near to distant future) change the perception?

4. Identify "Social Darwinism" (e.g., "survival of the fittest") with cultural, class, or biological developments in The Time Machine or post-liberal USA.

5. "Somebody up there Likes Me": How is Wells's industrial-era evolution updated to digital-era technology? What styles or symbols are updated in terms of gender, action, humor? How are both evolution and creation-apocalypse present in the same text?

5a. "Somebody" (cont'd): Published in 1994, this might be Literature of the Future's most current, hippest test. What feels current or futuristic about its language or scenario?

5b. In my years of teaching this story, I've always had to point out the evolutionary metaphors and symbols in this text—why? Does it mean that evolution isn't true or that we've so completely absorbed its worldview that we don't notice its metaphors and symbols?

Wednesday, 6 March (transition from evolution to alternative futures)

Readings: conclude The Time Machine (ch. 6 through epilogue); Bruce Sterling & Lewis Shiner, "Mozart in Mirrorshades" (email PDF)

Discussion-starter: Ruth Brown (either Time Machine or "Mozart" or both)

Future-vision presenter: Jacob Burchett

Agenda: premidterm, schedule, midterm

"Somebody Up There Likes Me"

Wells
future-vision: Jacob
quiz
Time Machine / Mozart discussion: Ruth

alternative futures & assignments

Sphinx in Time Machine

Discussion Questions:
Time Machine: Conclude Evolution Section; continue questions above +

1. conclusion of Eloi-Morlock story: apocalyptic or evolutionary? How like a romance narrative? How is the ending like "Stone Lives?"

2. Late in novel, very deep future—what storytelling challenges to deep-future science fiction? (cf. evolution narrative)

3. Summarize science fiction style + problems or issues with "classic science fiction." How does Wells survive as "classic sf" when so little sf does?

"Mozart in Mirrorshades": Begin Alternative Futures.

1. Look for key terms in quantum & temporal physics: probability, temporal physics, time holes, parallel worlds.

Wednesday, 20 March: Alternative Futures

Readings: "Garden of Forking Paths"; William Gibson, "The Gernsback Continuum"; "Better Be Ready 'bout Half Past Eight" (VN 22-47) [<title from lyrics to "Darktown Strutters' Ball" (1917)]

Discussion-starter: Zachariah Gandin

Future-vision presenter:

Model Assignments Highlights (midterms): instructor

Agenda: assignments , midterm,
web highlights: instructor model assignments

post-midterm, Mozart, science fiction, metaphor, alternative futures
quiz > break
discussion: Zachariah

Discussion Questions:

1. How convincingly do today's texts represent or make you feel the possibility of Alternative Futures, either through literary techniques or scientific references? If you have problems with these texts, how much do those problems result from the inherent difficulties of imagining alternative futures?

1a. What metaphors or analogies make this disconcerting concept familiar or imaginable? What mental images of alternative futures, besides "Garden of Forking Paths?" Branching tree? Maze or labyrinth? Altered mentality? Alternative sexuality? Multiple personality? Music in concert?

Wednesday, 3 April: high-tech future, cyberpunk literature

Readings: William Gibson, "Johnny Mnemonic"; William Gibson, "Burning Chrome"; Richard Goldstein, "The Logical Legend of Heliopause and Cyberfiddle" (VN 159-180).

Discussion-starter:  Beau Manshack

Future-vision presenter: Brandon Burrow, Zachariah Gandin, Beau Manshack, group prsn on Cyberpunk (continues 10 April)

Agenda: midterms, final
scenarios, high-tech, low-tech (JM 7.1-2) assignments,

future vision: Backrow Boys
quiz
[break]
discussion: Beau

Backgrounds: Cyberpunk in the 1980s and 90s represented a major "mainstreaming" of science fiction into literary fiction, with William Gibson ("The Gernsback Continuum") as the movement's defining figure. Gibson's writings, beginning with Neuromancer (1984), influenced metaphors and visions / scenarios with which writers, film-makers, and everyday people imagined or described the high-tech world of virtual reality and the human-machine interface.

Discussion Questions: 1. What do you like or dislike about cyberpunk style and why? ("Cyber" = cybernetics or artificial intelligence; "punk" = 70s-80s countercultural street style or attitude)

2. Gibson is admired as one of science fiction's best stylists, but his writing often leaves students cold.

What strengths? What resemblances to literary fiction? (e.g. imagery, metaphor, range of reference or allusion)

What weaknesses? (e.g. thin characterization, plot-turns on subtle shifts in human-machine relations rather than formulaic characterizations and whiz-bang action of popular science fiction)

What metaphors for computers, their users, and their realities does his style create?

What human-machine interfaces seen elsewhere in course? (e.g., bionic implants, human penetration of machines, body augmentation)

Gender stylings? (stereotypical background: sf for geeky white guys > implications for women's identities?) (recall "Stone Lives")

3. What attraction-repulsion of high-tech future? Consider organic / non-organic; actual / virtual reality; real people / social media.

Wednesday, 10 April: low-tech: organic human nature & tradition in high tech world

Readings: "The Onion and I," (VN 8-21)."Drapes and Folds," (VN 126-139).Octavia Butler, "Speech Sounds" (VN 91-108).

Discussion-starter:  Breanna Runnels

Future-vision presenter: Brandon Burrow, Zachariah Gandin, Beau Manshack, group prsn on Cyberpunk

Agenda: midterms > final exam

assignments utopia / dystopia & ecotopia/ scenario term-sites (final exam)

future vision: review + Backrow Boyz encore

quiz

break

discussion: Breanna

Discussion Questions:

1. If you didn't (or did) like the cyberpunk / high-tech / virtual reality stories, what opposing values or appeals of content or style do these low-tech stories offer?

2. What utopian / dystopian elements? Identify different appeals of low-tech and high-tech.

3. Contrast organic or biological appeals of low-tech with non-organic or tech appeals of high-tech.

4. What elements of Romanticism and romance narrative? (e.g., nostalgia for organic nature, sentimental human bonds of family; quest for transcendent meaning in antagonistic environment.)

5. Octavia Butler, author of Parable of the Sower, wrote "Speech Sounds"—how do you recognize her style and subject matter?

Wednesday, 17 April: ecotopia

Readings: K. S. Robinson, “Introduction” to Future Primitive; "Chocco" (FP 189-214); "House of Bones" (FP 85-110)

Jeet Heer, "The New Utopians" (read as far as you can, but for sure read the final paragraphs on "solarpunk")

Chaco Canyon

Discussion-starter: Sage Butler

Future-vision presenter: Kim Berlin

Agenda: utopia, ecotopia, etc.; final class assignments, discussion-lead?

"New Utopians"; population

future vision: Kimberlin

quiz 

Chocco, House of Bones discussion: Sage

Discussion Questions: 1. What are your experiences reading, studying, or teaching utopian or dystopian fiction in American middle schools and high schools? E.g., Brave New World, Anthem, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, The Giver, The Hunger Games and other Young Adult Dystopias. What are the attractions of these genres or sub-genres? Why does American reading go more toward dystopias than utopias? (See Laura Miller on YA Dystopian fiction.)

1a.What is utopian or potentially dystopian about the "ecotopias" in today's texts or in popular culture? (e.g., "small is beautiful," "voluntary simplicity")

2. Art or literature "entertains and educates". Some literature entertains more, some educates more; Where do the two stories fall on this spectrum? (related terms: didactic literature; Literature of Ideas; what terms for pleasure-reading?).

If "Chocco" is more didactic or instructional, what fictional features make it somewhat more entertaining, or relieve the educational edge? What kinds of literary pleasures does "Chocco" offer? (Consider characterization.)

How and why is "House of Bones" more entertaining as fiction than "Chocco?" In what ways may it still succeed as "instructive" or "educational?"

Any questions or comments generally about today's readings?

3. What are the urgencies and difficulties of discussing overpopulation and climate change? Does science fiction provide a way to discuss? What upsides, downsides to fiction as learning? What metaphors or symbols enable us to imagine a sustainable future?

Wednesday, 24 April: Alien Contact

Readings: "They're Made out of Meat," (VN 69-72)."The Poplar Street Study" (VN 140-148); "The Belonging Kind"

Discussion-starter:

Future-vision presenter: Oneydy Alonzo

video: Fermi Paradox (Fermi Paradox)

scale of solar system

Agenda: continue ecotopia discussion: Sage (take Audrey poem)

question 3 > "The New Utopians"; Pulitzer Prize fiction winner

prsn: Oneydy

quiz  + [break]

assignments

discussion questions on alien-contact fiction:

Fermi Paradox

Discussion Questions: 1. How do today's readings fulfill the scenario for Alien Contact?

2. What do we learn about ourselves and the unknown as a result of reading Alien Contact stories about the future?

2a. What literary techniques make you understand, care, and learn about the unknown? (e.g., metaphor, allusion, irony, the sublime)

2b. How does alien-contact science fiction change our view of humanity on earth? If humans and aliens represent "the self and the other," what do "they" reveal about "us?"
2c. Given the scale and mystery of the universe, how much does alien contact literature feel religious in some sense? Cf. the sublime (Hinterlands 3.1, 3.7)

3. How successfully do the stories get beyond predictable formulas or conventions of popular science fiction and become literary fiction? (e.g. characterization, interior complexity, ambiguous conclusions instead of triumphalism?)

3a. How much do characters escape the good guy-bad guy-confused woman characterization of popular science fiction or the aliens-as-terrorists models from The War of the Worlds, Independence Day or other standard "Earth vs. Aliens" movies in which aliens automatically appear as apocalyptic terrorists or as innocent child-like wise men (e.g., E.T., Yoda)?

3b. How can you identify William Gibson's style in "The Belonging Kind" and "Hinterlands" from our previous readings ("Gernsback Continuum"; "Johnny Mnemonic"; "Burning Chrome")? Consider extended metaphor and anti-hero characterization.

General pop-culture questions: 4. Since alien-visitation or "contact" is about as true or likely as ghost stories but is frequently represented in popular literature and film, what purposes does this subject serve for us? Why do we prefer stories about aliens to stories about our environment?

5. How do alien-contact futures represent our future narratives of apocalypse, evolution, or alternative futures?

Wednesday, 1 May:

Readings: Ursula K. Le Guin, "Newton's Sleep" (FP, 311-338); "Hinterlands"

Discussion-starter: Brandon Burrow

Future-vision presenter: Christopher Carlson

Agenda: final exam

alien contact

prsn: Christopher

quiz

[break]

discussion: Brandon

The Dispossessed

Discussion Questions: 1. What issues about "our future in space" do our readings raise?

1a. As in "Newton's Sleep," Is our home on Earth a place we must make livable and beautiful for all, or is there a part of being human (or modern American) that insists on breaking its limits for something greater and potentially terrifying?

2. What literary techniques make you understand, care, and learn? (e.g., metaphor, allusion, irony, the sublime)

2b. How can you identify William Gibson's style in  and "Hinterlands" from our previous readings ("Gernsback Continuum"; "Johnny Mnemonic"; "Burning Chrome", "The Belonging Kind")? Consider extended metaphor and anti-hero characterization.

3. How does outer-space sf change our view of humanity on earth? If humans and aliens represent "the self and the other," what do "they" reveal about "us?"

4. How successfully do the stories get beyond the "War of the Worlds" model seen in Independence Day or other standard "Earth vs. Aliens" movies in which aliens automatically appear as apocalyptic terrorists?

General pop-culture questions:

5. Since aliens probably don't exist but are constantly represented in popular culture, what purposes do they serve for us? Why do we prefer stories about aliens to stories about our environment?

6. What dimensions of time or the future do aliens represent? Evolutionary or apocalyptic? Near-future or deep-future?