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|
and Society |
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Writing Workshop |
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Summer
2011
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Instructor: |
3040 Wescoe (also CSSF lending library - mixed summer availability) |
785-864-2509 (office phone - mixed summer availability) |
cmckit@ku.edu (I check this regularly) |
Office hours: Daily after discussions in meeting area, beforehand at Mrs. E's (everyone is invited to chat!), and in the evenings (we often have dinner downtown, see movies, and so forth). Other days and times by appointment. |
Science Fiction Grand Master James Gunn
originally designed this course and will join us for lunch at Mrs. E's - and he might drop in occasionally as guest speaker.
Gunn's office: 3039 Wescoe. Gunn's email:
jgunn@ku.edu
Class begins at 1:00pm on Monday, July 11, in the Templin Hall dorm's 3rd floor lounge. Several of us will meet for lunch from noon - 12:50 across the street at Lewis Hall's Mrs. E's cafeteria, where you also have the opportunity to chat with James Gunn. We'll have someone at the front doors to the Lewis Hall to let in those not staying in the dorm, so be sure to arrive between 12:50 and 1:00 - no later! - so we can get you through the doors.
Course Goals
Daily Reading and Discussion Schedule
Required Books
Recommended Books
Course Requirements
Class Periods
Discussants
Papers
Daily Response Papers
Daily Paper Scoring
Final Project
Option A: Traditional Research Paper
Option B: Course Outline, Lesson Plan, or Study Guide
Option C: Creative Work
Final Project Deadline
Final Grading
To provide an understanding of contemporary and future science fiction through studying the history of the genre and many of its great works. We read a diversity of short SF and excerpts from longer pieces, and then we discuss how the genre got to be what it is today by comparing stories and their place in the evolution of SF, from the earliest prototypical examples through more recent work.
You will find this handy Readings Guide very useful in finding the stories in our various volumes. Be sure to read the short essays that introduce each story, as well as the book introductions whenever we start a new volume.
|
1A |
vol 1 |
excerpt from Frankenstein |
Mary Shelley |
|
1A |
vol 1 |
"Rappaccini's Daughter" |
Nathaniel Hawthorne |
|
1A |
vol 1 |
"The Diamond Lens" |
Fitz-James O'Brien |
|
1A |
vol 3 |
"The Cold Equations" |
Tom Godwin |
|
1A |
vol 3 |
"The Engine at Heartspring's Center" |
Roger Zelazny |
|
1B |
vol 1 |
"The Star" |
H.G. Wells |
|
1B |
vol 2 |
"The Machine Stops" |
E.M. Forster |
|
1B |
vol 2 |
"Twilight" |
John W. Campbell |
|
2A |
vol 1 |
excerpt from A True Story |
Lucian of Samosata |
|
2A |
vol 1 |
excerpt from The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville |
Anonymous |
|
2A |
vol 1 |
"Somnium or Lunar Astronomy" |
Johannes Kepler |
|
2A |
vol 1 |
excerpt from The Journey to the World Underground |
Ludvig Holberg |
|
2A |
vol 1 |
"Mellonta Tauta" |
Edgar Allan Poe |
|
2A |
vol 1 |
excerpt from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea |
Jules Verne |
|
2A |
vol 1 |
excerpt from Around the Moon |
Jules Verne |
|
2A |
vol 1 |
excerpt from Looking Backward |
Edward Bellamy |
|
2A |
vol 1 |
"With the Night Mail" |
Rudyard Kipling |
|
2B |
vol 1 |
excerpt from Utopia |
Thomas More |
|
2B |
vol 1 |
excerpt from The City of the Sun |
Tommaso Campanella |
|
2B |
vol 1 |
excerpt from The New Atlantis |
Francis Bacon |
|
3A |
vol 1 |
excerpt from A Voyage to the Moon |
Cyrano de Bergerac |
|
3A |
vol 1 |
excerpt from A Voyage to Laputa |
Jonathan Swift |
|
3A |
vol 1 |
"Micromégas" |
Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire |
|
3A |
vol 2 |
"The Revolt of the Pedestrians" |
David H. Keller, M.D. |
|
3A |
vol 2 |
excerpt from Brave New World |
Aldous Huxley |
|
3B |
vol 1 |
"The Damned Thing" |
Ambrose Bierce |
|
3B |
vol 2 |
"The Moon Pool" (2002) |
A. Merritt |
|
3B |
vol 2 |
"The Red One" |
Jack London |
|
3B |
vol 2 |
"Dagon" |
H.P. Lovecraft |
|
4A |
vol 1 |
excerpt from She |
H. Rider Haggard |
|
4A |
vol 2 |
From Under the Moons of Mars |
Edgar Rice Burroughs |
|
4A |
vol 2 |
"A Martian Odyssey" |
Stanley G. Weinbaum |
|
4A |
vol 2 |
"Proxima Centauri" |
Murray Leinster |
|
4A |
vol 2 |
"Black Destroyer" |
A.E. van Vogt |
|
4B |
vol 2 |
"The New Accelerator" |
H.G. Wells |
|
4B |
vol 2 |
"The Tissue-Culture King" |
Julian Huxley |
|
4B |
vol 2 |
"With Folded Hands" |
Jack Williamson |
|
4B |
vol 3 |
"Brooklyn Project" |
William Tenn (Philip Klass) |
|
5A |
vol 2 |
excerpt from Last and First Men |
Olaf Stapledon |
|
5A |
vol 2 |
"What's It Like Out There?" |
Edmond Hamilton |
|
5A |
vol 2 |
"The Faithful" |
Lester del Rey |
|
5A |
vol 2 |
"Requiem" |
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
5B |
vol 2 |
"Hyperpilosity" |
L. Sprague de Camp |
|
5B |
vol 2 |
"Nightfall" |
Isaac Asimov |
|
5B |
vol 3 |
"Reason" |
Isaac Asimov |
|
5B |
vol 3 |
"Critical Factor" |
Hal Clement |
|
6A |
vol 3 |
"Sail On! Sail On!" |
José Farmer |
|
6B |
vol 3 |
"All You Zombies" |
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
6B |
vol 3 |
"We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" |
Philip K. Dick |
|
6B |
vol 3 |
"Sundance" |
Robert Silverberg |
|
7A |
vol 3 |
"Desertion" |
Clifford D. Simak |
|
7A |
vol 3 |
"The Game of Rat and Dragon" |
Cordwainer Smith |
|
7A |
vol 3 |
"Who Can Replace a Man?" |
Brian W. Aldiss |
|
7A |
vol 3 |
"Dolphin's Way" |
Gordon R. Dickson |
|
7A |
vol 3 |
"Day Million" |
Frederik Pohl |
|
7A |
vol 3 |
"Tricentennial" |
Joe Haldeman |
|
7B |
vol 3 |
"The Million-Year Picnic" |
Ray Bradbury |
|
7B |
vol 3 |
"Thunder and Roses" |
Theodore Sturgeon |
|
7B |
vol 3 |
"That Only a Mother" |
Judith Merril |
|
7B |
vol 3 |
"The Terminal Beach" |
J. G. Ballard |
|
7B |
vol 3 |
"The Big Flash" |
Norman Spinrad |
|
8A |
vol 3 |
"Mimsy Were the Borogoves" |
Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore) |
|
8A |
vol 3 |
"The Sentinel" |
Arthur C. Clarke |
|
8A |
vol 3 |
"Kyrie" |
Poul Anderson |
|
8A |
vol 4 |
"Schrödinger's Kitten" |
George Alec Effinger |
|
8B |
vol 3 |
"Coming Attraction" |
Fritz Leiber |
|
8B |
vol 3 |
"Harrison Bergeron" |
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. |
|
8B |
vol 3 |
"Slow Tuesday Night" |
R. A. Lafferty |
|
8B |
vol 3 |
"Aye, and Gomorrah" |
Samuel R. Delany |
|
8B |
vol 3 |
"The Jigsaw Man" |
Larry Niven |
|
8B |
vol 3 |
excerpt from Stand on Zanzibar |
John Brunner |
|
9A |
vol 3 |
"Fondly Fahrenheit" |
Alfred Bester |
|
9A |
vol 3 |
"Pilgrimage to Earth" |
Robert Sheckley |
|
9A |
vol 3 |
"The Streets of Ashkelon" |
Harry Harrison |
|
9A |
vol 3 |
"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" |
Harlan Ellison |
|
9A |
vol 3 |
"Masks" |
Damon Knight |
|
9B |
vol 3 |
excerpt from The Left Hand of Darkness |
Ursula K. Le Guin |
|
9B |
vol 3 |
"When It Changed" |
Joanna Russ |
|
9B |
vol 4 |
"The heat death of the Universe" |
Pamela Zoline |
|
9B |
vol 4 |
"Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" |
Vonda N. McIntyre |
|
9B |
vol 4 |
"Abominable" |
Carol Emshwiller |
|
10A |
vol 4 |
"Born of Man and Woman" |
Richard Matheson |
|
10A |
vol 4 |
"Common Time" |
James Blush |
|
10A |
vol 4 |
"Nobody Bothers Gus" |
Algis Budrys |
|
10A |
vol 4 |
"The Dance of the Changer and the Three" |
Terry Carr |
|
10A |
vol 4 |
"The Last Flight of Dr. Ain" |
James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon) |
|
10A |
vol 4 |
"View from a Height" |
Joan D. Vinge |
|
10B |
vol 4 |
A Canticle for the Fifties |
|
|
10B |
vol 4 |
"Flowers for Algernon" |
Daniel Keyes |
|
10B |
vol 4 |
excerpt from Dune |
Frank Herbert |
|
10B |
vol 4 |
"The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" |
Gene Wolfe |
|
10B |
vol 4 |
"Gather Blue Roses" |
Pamela Sargent |
|
11A |
vol 4 |
"The Library of Babel" |
Jorge Luis Borges |
|
11A |
vol 4 |
"With a Finger in My I" |
David Gerrold |
|
11A |
vol 4 |
"Rogue Tomato" |
Michael Bishop |
|
11A |
vol 4 |
"The Word Sweep" |
George Zebrowski |
|
11B |
vol 4 |
"The Luckiest Man in Denv" |
C.M. Kornbluth |
|
11B |
vol 4 |
"Where No Sun Shines" |
Gardner Dozois |
|
11B |
vol 4 |
"Angouleme" |
Thomas M. Disch |
|
11B |
vol 4 |
"Uncoupling" |
Barry Malzberg |
|
11B |
vol 4 |
"This Tower of Ashes" |
George R.R. Martin |
|
12A |
vol 4 |
"My Boy Friend's Name is Jello" |
Avram Davidson |
|
12A |
vol 4 |
"The First Sally (A), or Trurl's Electronic Bard" |
Stanislaw Lem |
|
12A |
vol 4 |
"The World Science Fiction Convention of 2080" |
Ian Watson |
|
12B |
vol 4 |
"The Moon Moth" |
Jack Vance |
|
12B |
vol 4 |
"Light of Other Days" |
Bob Shaw |
|
12B |
vol 4 |
"The Planners" |
Kate Wilhelm |
|
12B |
vol 4 |
"Air Raid |
John Varley |
|
12C |
vol 4 |
"Particle Theory |
Edward Bryant |
|
12C |
vol 4 |
"Exposures" |
Gregory Benford |
The readings all come from James Gunn's wonderful The Road to Science Fiction series of anthologies. When you lead class discussions, you are also expected to do additional research about the day's topics and authors beyond the fiction readings and share what you learn with the rest of the class, as well.
We will read most of the stories in the first four volumes of The Road to Science Fiction, edited by James Gunn. The titles below contain links to online booksellers like Amazon and Powell's; click these links to find the books for sale online:
Full details about which stories we'll be reading and discussing on each day is available in the syllabus here.
Some of these volumes might be difficult to find, so we urge you seek copies early and, when books are out of print, search used bookstores and online services (we provide links to two major online booksellers after each title, above). The University of Kansas Oread Book Store tries to always have copies of these books on hand. Address:
Kansas Union, Lawrence KS 66045
Phone: 1-800-458-1111
Email: jayhawks@ku.edu
Web: http://www.kubookstore.com/
You can also order the revised editions of the first four volumes directly from Scarecrow Press: http://www.scarecrowpress.com/. Use the Quick Search keywords "James Gunn."
For further reading, Gunn has also edited two more volumes (not required reading):
Also recommended are the complete works from which we read a number of excerpts. More to come! Check back later....
To successfully complete the course and get out of it all you can, you are required to:
Each day we discuss a variety of stories, their authors, the science fiction genre, and the historical context in which they appeared. Occasionally, we might have guest speakers. Participants are also welcome to lunch from noon - 12:50pm with SF authors Chris McKitterick (your instructor and CSSF Director), James Gunn (SFWA Grant Master who first developed the course and CSSF Founding Director), and Kij Johnson (multiple award-winning author and CSSF Associate Director), as well as dine out in the evenings in lovely downtown Lawrence, attend movies, engage in more discussions, and so forth. Class periods revolve largely around discussion, with some lecture. We meet every day from July 11 through July 22, including the Saturday and Sunday between those two weeks.
Participants are also strongly encouraged to register for and attend the Campbell Conference, July 7 - 10, where you can meet many authors and editors, get books signed, and participate in a unique scholarly event in the field. Attendees of the Conference get 10 bonus points for attending and writing up a response to the event! Register now if you'd like to be a part of this year's event!
After an introduction to the topic by your instructor, 1-2 students assigned as discussants for each day lead (not monopolize) the discussions. Everyone is required to act as discussant at least twice during the 12 days we meet. If you have special needs and cannot perform this task, let me know early.
Discussants perform additional research prior to class (further readings on the genre movements at hand and the day's authors, identifying possible multimedia content, and so forth) and come prepared with three or more questions per story to stimulate discussion about the day's topic and readings. I expect all students to participate in discussions, but I also request that you avoid talking too much or talking over others. Be civil: These are discussions about ideas, not arguments!
Your instructor will open each day with some background on science fiction, especially the topics and genre movements relevant to the day's discussions, and some information about the authors. After that, the day's student discussants take over. Bring at least three questions per story to stimulate discussion among your peers. You can split up the tasks among your fellow discussants based on stories, topics, or however you see fit. I simply expect everyone to serve equally.
Graduate students and teachers: I expect you to demonstrate solid pedagogical theory! Pretend you're teaching this course for a day.
Much of your grade depends on the short response papers you write on each story covered in the daily discussions and the longer final project. If you use non-standard software to create your projects, be sure to save them in standard formats (for example, most computers can read .doc, .html, .rtf, and .pdf formats). Turn in papers via Blackboard before class begins - and I welcome you to turn them in before the semester begins. They will be graded and returned via Blackboard in a reasonable time.
Participants taking the course not-for-credit are not expected to turn in daily responses, though you may if you wish. Prior to each class, you will write a short reading-response paper and turn it in via Blackboard. This one- or two-page (300-500 words) paper is a brief but thoughtful response to all of the readings for that day. Insightfulness and clarity are important. Along with participation in the discussion, these papers are scored as an important measure of your engagement with the day's topics.
Tip: Include questions to pose to the other participants as well as some points to stimulate discussion, even if you are not leading the week's discussion. I suggest printing out your paper and especially your questions and bringing them to class to help formulate ideas during discussion. (Also be sure to turn them in via Blackboard in advance of class.) They are usually returned to you via Blackboard, scored, by the end of the second week.
Here is how I score the daily papers, based on 0-4 points each:
0 - no paper.
1 - paper turned in, but does not convince me that you
did all the reading.
2 - paper convinces me that you did some of the
reading.
3 - paper either has interesting insights on most of the readings or convinces
me
that you did all the reading.
4 - paper convinces me that you did all the reading
and provides interesting
insights.
Missing response papers are due ASAP, preferably before July 11. Responses turned in on the day of the discussions (or afterward) are considered late and will be marked down 1 point if turned in on the day of discussion, 2 points if turned in up to three days late, and 3 points after that. The last day to turn in any paper is Thursday, July 28. Turn them in on time!
The final project can be either a traditional essay, a set of teaching materials, or a creative work. Your project explores a topic in science fiction, preferably topics not listed in the syllabus or discussed in class - though you may pursue those if you select an angle we don't already cover or discuss. Projects must be at least 2000 words for undergraduates, 3000 words for graduate students, with a max of 7500 words.
You must include an annotated bibliography (a list of references with brief notes) at the end of your document, especially if it is a creative work. An annotated bibliography is a set of references that provide a summary of your research. List your sources alphabetically and include a brief summary or annotation of each document that you quoted in the paper or that you list as a reference. Format your bibliography as appropriate for your field of study (MLA for Humanities, Chicago for most other fields, and so forth; here's a good list of style guides). Turn in this project via Blackboard.
References, bibliographies, and endnote pages do not count toward the minimum wordcount.
Participants taking the course not-for-credit are not expected to turn in a final project, though you may if you wish.
Most participants choose this option. Formal papers are graded on the quality and diversity of research (both fictional and non-fictional), the writing (including grammar and spelling), and the strength of the topic and argument. What I most want is for you to demonstrate what you've learned from the class readings, your outside readings, and class discussions, and how you express this synthesis: Demonstrate your understanding of science fiction. This is not something that you can successfully complete at the last minute. The research paper should represent a summer-long investigation of topics that interest you. If you wish to use stories from the assigned readings that we discussed in class, I expect you to have something new to say that we didn't already discuss.
Many participants choose this option, especially teachers and those planning to be teachers. Choose from these three options:
All of these options make wonderful additions to AboutSF.com!
A creative work (story, series of poems, play, short film, website, creative nonfiction, and so forth) must dramatize how the changes posed in your work could affect believable, interesting characters living in a convincing, fully realized world in addition to revealing substantial understanding of the science fiction genre. For the purposes of this course, your annotated bibliography (normally not included in creative works) is particularly important if you pursue this option, because I want to see a diversity of readings that help you develop your work (both fictional and non-fictional). Show me your research with a good, well-annotated bibliography, and make your story stand on its own as a story. Be aware that this option is more challenging - especially if you haven't taken formal writing courses - because I expect the same level of research as in the other options plus a good story. Click here to find some useful writing resources.
Your final project is due TBA (finals week). The completed project is due via Blackboard. If you've created a website, posted a short film to the internet, or otherwise cannot upload the project directly, just provide a link (website URL) to the project in the Notes section of the appropriate Blackboard assignment.
Your course grade is based upon these factors:
Attendees of the Conference can earn up to 10 bonus points for writing up a response to the event! Register now if you'd like to be a part of this year's event!
updated 8/11/2011
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