| |
| |
| |
| |
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 & handouts--see reading schedule below
|
Graded Work
Reading
quizzes (app. 10%, more if
results are far below average.)
Midterm
(In-class or email, 25 June; 30-40%)
Final Exam (9 July,
in-class or email; 40-50%)
Class Presentations, participation,
attendance (app. 10-20%, graded
silently)
Future-Vision
Presentation
Informal
presentations:
Discussion-Starter &
Web-Highlighter
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.
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.
Final grade report
Course
policies |
|
Course Objectives
including essential
terms
|
|
(Objectives 1-5 are central themes for the midterm and final exams.
As learning outcomes,
you are expected to identify and use these
terms or concepts in relation to each other
and course texts. Objectives 6-9 are themes
recurring throughout discussions, lectures, and readings that students are
invited to develop in presentations and exams.)
1.
To identify, describe, and criticize
3 standard
narratives or stories
humans tell about the future:
|
1b.
Evolution
cosmic /
geologic time scales: millions, billions of solar years, galactic years |
enlarge |
1d. Relate future
narratives to traditional
narrative genres & corresponding
figures of speech.
Objective 2—Visions /
Scenarios of the Future |
|
2.
To identify, describe, and criticize typical
visions or
scenarios of the future (seen from 2013).
a.
high
tech; virtual reality—slick, cool, unreal, easy with power (+ cyberpunk
style)
b. low tech; actual reality—rough,
intimate, messy, hungry, warm, real
c. utopia
/ dystopia / ecotopia—perfectly
planned worlds / dysfunctional world / + ecology
d.
off-planet / alien contact—exploring and being explored
Objective 3—Narrative
& Symbol
3.
To comprehend basic theories of
narrative, plot, or story + narrative's relation to
symbol.
-
Humans are story-telling creatures
who
live, react, and decide in
narratives that express our
symbolic fears and desires.
-
Narratives are both individual and
collective; literary and historical—very inclusive concept.
-
Four traditional
"narrative genres":
comedy, romance, satire, tragedy, plus combinations.
-
The dominant popular narrative for
literature of the future and especially science fiction is "romance."
-
Symbol as a mental
function of substitution or creation of meaning.
-
The Sublime as an aesthetic of
rapid, apocalyptic change.
Objective 4—Genres
4.
To identify
subject genres of future literature
Objective 5—Teaching, Learning, Testing
5.
To articulate teaching, learning, & evaluation methods for special course
content
-
Instructor and students share
standard knowledge + new contexts or applications; students react to first-time readings,
as instructor welcomes extensions of
previous learning.
-
Exams require basic comprehension and
expression of course objectives, but excellence occurs when students
extend or refresh learning with fresh examples,
insights, and expression.
-
Can new sections of courses build on
previous sections' accomplishments?
Model Assignments
- Correlate traditional
literary themes like mimesis and
entertainment & education,
and traditional teaching practices like
critical thinking,
with special texts and subjects.
Secondary Course Objectives
(Recurrent themes or issues you may develop in exams and presentations)
6.
Is the future "written" (i. e., set, fixed, programmed, and usually
apocalyptic) or "being
written" ("open-ended" and usually
evolutionary)?
7.
To see literature of the future as reflections of the present in
which it is written. (How much change from normal can readers process?)
8.
To note literary strategies and problems such as how to make the future
both familiar and exotic. (Or “comforting / challenging”; “friendly /
unfriendly”; “warm / cold”). See Wells's
Law.
9.
To distinguish distinct temporal dimensions of the future
-
Near future;
short-term; day-after-tomorrow (often dramatic or apocalyptic change, such
as alien contact)
-
Deep future,
long-term (usually evolutionary change involving
changing environments and
adaptations)
-
Alternative depths of future between, beyond,
parallel, or skew
Reading & Presentation Schedule:
LITR 4368, Summer 2015 |
|
Initial guide
to course anthologies:
BC
= Burning Chrome;
FP
= Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias ed. K. S. Robinson (1994);
VN
= Virtually Now: Stories of Science, Technology and the Future
|
Discussion Questions:
Reading religious texts as literature? How does
anyone read scripture? What attitudes toward Biblical
Creation & Evolution?
Genesis as Origin Story / Creation
Story: familiarity with genre?
How does the Creation story in Genesis set up Revelation? |
|
Tuesday, 9 June:
Readings:
Continue
Scriptural Texts of Creation & Apocalypse
terms:
Millennium / Apocalypse,
prophecy,
sublime,
symbol
Discussion-starter:
Zach Mayfield
Web-highlighter (midterms): instructor
terms:
images,
symbols,
genre, utopia,
narrative genre,
romance narrative
|
Agenda:
emails, presentations
Assign
Parable of the Sower;
creation / origin stories
quiz on reading assignments
ways to study Literature
Discussion-starter: Zach
symbols & narratives
web-highlight:
midterms (grading standards) |
|
Discussion Questions:
Reading assignment:
See note to
Index to Scriptural Texts of Creation & Apocalypse;
also review term-sites for
narrative,
symbols,
and
narratives of the future.
Formal questions for Literature of the Future
midterm:
1. Creation-Apocalypse
narratives exemplify the linear model
of time, but what parts of today's 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? (instructor will lead)
3.
Symbols are among the most striking and
obvious devices of 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?
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? (Worth remembering that 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
consequences to perennial belief that "ours is the last generation?"
|
|
|
Discussion Questions:
1. Conclude Apocalyptic
scriptures: upsides / downsides of
interpreting Scripture as literary text?
Attractions / detractions of apocalyptic
narrative?
2. Compare
Parable to Revelation. How
are both
apocalyptic?
2a. Describe Parable of the Sower as
science fiction / speculative
fiction. (Compare / contrast Revelation as scripture.)
2b. As
science fiction, how
does Parable incorporate
evolution?
(For instance, human behavior
as change and adaptation? Contrast to sin and virtue, or faith vs.
lack of faith?)
2c. 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)
2d. Lauren also develops her own theology--compare, contrast her
father's Baptist belief.
3. Compare biblical
apocalypse and environmental apocalypse?
|
|
|
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 co-exclusion?
2b. Where do they 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 it
survives, why? What literary qualities make it somewhat timeless
or classic?
|
|
|
Discussion Questions:
1. What key
terms or ways of thinking signal
that these stories operate in a world built on on
evolutionary premises? (Consider
terms or ideas like change, adaptation, survival, + plenty of animal
characters and symbols)
2. What picture of humanity
do these stories (and evolutionary models) create? What assumptions about the way nature, time,
and society are
organized?
3. compare / contrast
apocalyptic narrative
4. Preview high tech / low tech scenarios
(29-30 June): Are "Stone Lives" & "Bears" high tech
or low tech sf? What different appeals?
5. "Stone Lives"
is our most
typical sci-fi story all semester—How? Discuss gender,
depiction of
world, and esp.
romance narrative
6. "Bears" is an unusually
humorous sf story—how? What makes it
amusing? How does its narrative fit the definition of
comedy? |
|
|
Discussion Questions:
1. H.G.
Wells is the greatest historic science
fiction writer. What qualities distinguish his style? What models
does he create for
science fiction
in terms of action and characterization? What mix of science and
fiction?
2.
The Time Machine was written 1895, a generation after Darwin's
Origin of Species (1859): What signs
or terms of evolution in
Time
Machine?
3.
Evolution as
progress instead of
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 the
cultural or class developments in
The Time Machine.
5. "Somebody up there . . . ": How is Wells's industrial-era
evolution updated to digital-era technology? What styles or
symbols are updated in terms of gender, action, humor? |
|
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?
2. Late in
novel, very deep future--what storytelling challenges? (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, time holes, parallel worlds
(i.e., alternative histories & futures)
2. alternative
futures--note figures of "branching" ("Garden of Forking
Paths")3. How does "Mozart in Mirrorshades" exemplify sf as a way to make a topic like
alternative futures friendly, non-threatening, or accessible to average readers
Midterm (Thurs.): Discuss Essay 2 topics
(personal-professional interests & applications)
on Tuesday |
|
|
Discussion Questions:
1. How successful is "Garden of Forking Paths" as
Literature
of Ideas? Compare "Gernsback" & "Half Past Eight"
1a. More specifically, how convincingly does it represent or make
you feel the possibility of
Alternative Futures?
2. Except in "Garden," observe scientific background for
alternative futures, esp. quantum physics as "probability"
3. What images of alternative futures, besides "Garden of
Forking Paths"---branching tree?
4. What attractions, repulsions to alternative futures,
compared to apocalyptic and evolutionary narratives?
5.
Discuss Midterm Essay 2 topics |
|
Thursday, 25 June:
midterm (instructor keeps office
hours; attendance not required; email midterms due by Friday
noon, 26 June) |
|
Visions / Scenarios of the Future
|
Discussion Questions:
1. What like / dislike about cyberpunk and
why?1a. Attraction-repulsion of high-tech future?
Consider organic / non-organic; actual
/ virtual
reality.
2. How identify cyberpunk style? William
Gibson as "father / founder / leading stylist of
cyberpunk," influential sf style in past generation.
(associated terms: high-tech,
virtual reality, cyberspace)
3. What about Gibson's style makes literary
sorts acknowledge him as a real writer? (most sf writers are competent
but indifferent to style, more interested in ideas, action--cf. Bernstein,
"Logical Legend"). Pay special attention to
extended metaphor.
4. Problems with
cyberpunk?
|
|
|
Discussion Questions:
1. If you didn't like the cyberpunk / high-tech / virtual
realities stories, what alternative values or appeals do these
low-tech stories offer?
2. What
utopian / dystopian elements?
Identify different appeals
of low-tech and high-tech.
3. Contrast organic appeals of
low-tech with non-organic of high-tech.
4. What elements of
romance?
5. Octavia
Butler, author of Parable of the Sower, wrote "Speech
Sounds"—how might you recognize her style and subject matter?
(compare our discussions of Gibson) |
|
Thursday,
2 July: ecotopia
Readings:
K. S. Robinson, “Introduction” to
Future Primitive;
"Chocco" (FP
189-214);
"House of Bones" (FP
85-110)
Presentation:
Hannah Wells, LITR MA student on utopias / dystopias
Discussion-starter:
instructor
Future-vision presenter:
Melissa South (Waterworld,
1995)
|
Agenda:
assignments; cosmos
quiz
Le Guin story in Future Primitive discuss readings
Chocco break + evaluations House of
Bones (Obj. 3; romance)
prsn: |
|
Discussion Questions:
1.
What is
utopian
or potentially dystopian about
"ecotopia?"
2. Art or literature
"entertains and educates"
in a continuum: some
literature entertains more, some educates more; e.g.
didactic literature. Where do the two stories fall on this
spectrum?3. What are the urgencies
and difficulties of discussing
population, climate? Does science fiction provide a way to discuss?
What metaphors enable us to imagine a sustainable future?
4. Why is it difficult to write stories that
make people care for the environment? What inherent problems with
ecological literature?
-
ecology requires collective responsibility
for shared world with no escape--must avoid apocalypse
-
most stories require individual heroes and simple
solutions or escape; apocalypse no problem as long as someone else takes
the heat
|
|
|
Discussion Questions:
1. What issues about "our future in space"
do our readings raise?
2. What literary techniques make you
understand, care, and learn? (e.g.,
metaphor, allusion,
irony,
the sublime)
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?
|
|
|
Discussion Questions:
1. What issues about "our future in space"
do our readings raise?
2. What literary techniques make you
understand, care, and learn? (e.g.,
metaphor, allusion,
irony,
the sublime)
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?
|
|
Thursday, 9 July final exam
(in-class or
email); instructor holds office hours 9am-12noon; email exams due by Friday noon, 5 July.
Laura Miller, 2012 review of Elaine Pagels, Revelations
Nassim
Nicholas Taleb, "The Future will not be Cool"
"Chatter of Doomsday Makes
Beijing Nervous," New York Times 19 Dec. 2012
Michael Lind,
"Stop Pretending Cyberspace Exists," Salon.Com 12 Feb.
2013
"Why are Birthrates Falling
around the World? Blame Television."
Washington Post 13 May 2013
Hubble space telescope pictures
Maintained by: Craig White - whitec@uhcl.edu
Copyright © 1995 University of Houston - Clear Lake
2700 Bay Area Blvd.
Houston, TX 77058
|