The course will focus on contemporary North American texts that straddle the label “science fiction” (some will sit squarely on it) and that engage environmental/ecological themes. Most of these texts will be dystopian in the way they perceive dangerous tendencies in contemporary society and intensify them in imagined futures. We will discuss what these texts have to tell us about how we think about "nature," asking some fundamental questions: what do we mean by "nature,” "artificial"? What are the possible outcomes of our current cultural and technological processes? What are the connections between environmental or ecological issues on one hand and political or economic issues on the other? Students should understand how the environment can influence the creative imagination and, alternatively, how the fictional works can re-direct thinking about the environment, what it is and what it might be. 

White Noise, Don DeLillo
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick (and Blade Runner)
The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin 
The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler
Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Galapagos, Kurt Vonnegut
State of Fear, Michael Crichton

Requirements:
Keep up with the ample reading load
Faithful attendance and participation
Responses posted to an electronic roundtable (alternating with responses from peers)
Serve as discussant or co-discussant to draw on research
1 short paper/close reading (4-6 pages)
1 seminar paper (8-12 pages)

Close Reading: Choose a single passage/scene/section from one of the required core readings. Offer a close reading of this passage that demonstrates the way in which your chosen passage illuminates the larger concerns of the full text. In other words, read your selected passage as a way into understanding at least some of the major themes, plot workings, stylistic strategies, rhetorical strategies, and/or symbolic codes, etc. of the text as a whole. Be sure to focus, and don't try to write about  everything in the entire work. Choose your passage carefully, and then focus on its major implications (as you see them). You may--but are not required--to use secondary sources to help you develop your interpretive approach. Be sure to cite all ideas and quotations taken from secondary sources. Samples to come. 

Discussants: The goal here to learn how to clearly and concisely present the ideas of prior critics and scholars, developing a greater facility with critical discourses and methods. Also, you will help facilitate discussion for the first night of that week, by raising appropriate questions and reviewing the class’s initial responses. Try to “lead off” the posts by putting up three or so good prompts by Monday, 5:00. You may distribute handouts if necessary in class or go the screen.  Draw on the suggested works, if appropriate/warranted, but you may (should?) also find others.

Posts/Ripostes: By 3:00 before Tuesday class, respond to the reading and/or a discussant’s question, getting in lots of textual evidence. We’ll divide the class in two, so there are posters and riposters. The riposters should respond to the initial round of posts and to Tuesday’s class discussion, more informally, by Thursday 3:00. The posts will be examined qualitatively, for how well they 1) present a point of view or respond to a question 2) use evidence to support it. About a page and ½ in length. Each post/riposte is worth 2 points x 10 = 20

Seminar Paper: Write an 8-12 page paper with secondary research on a topic that grows out of our course. Present it at our mini-conference (draft due so I can comment before final).

Grading:

url: http://rvannoy.asp.radford.edu
last updated: 02/07/2008
maintained by: Rick Van Noy
contact: rvannoy@radford.edu