| WEEK # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction: Possible Worlds |
“Defining Science Fiction.” In Science Fiction. pp. 1-36. Le Guin, Ursula K. “Do-It-Yourself Cosmology.” In The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1993, pp. 118-122. ISBN: 9780060924126. Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan, Jr. “Science Fiction and This Moment.” In The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008, pp. 1-12. ISBN: 9780819568892. |
| 2 | Techniques of Othering |
Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials, all. “Race and Star Trek.” In Science Fiction. pp. 127-132. Said, Edward. “Knowing the Oriental.” In Orientalism. New York, NY: Vintage, 1979, pp. 31-49. ISBN: 9780394740676. Adare, Sierra S. “Introduction,” “Future ‘Indians’,” “Past Stereotypes.” In “Indian” Stereotypes in TV Science Fiction: First Nations’ Voices Speak Out. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2005, pp. 1-9, 29-31 and 37-41. ISBN: 9780292706125. Delany, Samuel R. “Racism and Science Fiction.” In Thomas, Sheree R. Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. New York, NY: Warner, 2000, pp. 381-397. ISBN: 9780446525831. Sofia, Zoe. “Aliens ‘R’ U.S.: American Science Fiction Viewed from Down Under.” In Slusser, George E., and Eric S. Rabkin. Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987, pp. 128-141. ISBN: 9780809313754. Sobchack, Vivian. “The Alien,” “Embracing the Alien, Erasing Alienation.” In Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997, pp. 89-106 and 292-299. ISBN: 9780813524924. |
| 3 | First Contact |
The Sparrow, all. Fabian, Johannes. “Living and Dying,” “Communicating and Commanding.” In Out of Our Minds: Reason and Madness in the Exploration of Central Africa. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000, pp. 52-77 and 129-150. ISBN: 9780520221239. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. “Anthropology and the Savage Slot: The Poetics and Politics of Otherness.” In Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2003, pp. 7-28. ISBN: 9780312295219. |
| 4 | Afrofuturism, Utopian and Dystopian |
Brown Girl in the Ring, all. Nelson, Alondra. “‘Making the Impossible Possible’: An Interview with Nalo Hopkinson.” Social Text 71 (2002): 97-114. James, Erica. “Haunting Ghosts: Madness, Gender, and Ensekirite in Haiti in the Democratic Era.” In DelVecchio Good, Mary-Jo, Sandra Hyde, Sarah Pinto, and Byron Good. Postcolonial Disorders. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008, pp. 132-156. ISBN: 9780520252240. Eglash, Ron. “Race, Sex, and Nerds: From Black Geeks to Asian American Hipsters.” Social Text 71 (2002): 49-64. Saunders, Charles R. “Why Blacks Should Read (and Write) Science Fiction.” In Thomas, Sheree R. Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. New York, NY: Warner, 2000, pp. 398-404. ISBN: 9780446525831. Williams, Ben. “Black Secret Technology: Detroit Techno and the Information Age.” In Nelson, Alondra, Thuy Linh N. Tu, and Alicia Hedlam Hines. Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2001, pp. 154-176. ISBN: 9780814736043. |
| 5 | Vampires! |
Fledgling, all. Stetson, George R. “The Animistic Vampire in New England.” American Anthropologist 9 (1896): 1-13. White, Luise. “Vampire Priests of Central Africa: Debates about Labor and Religions in Colonial Northern Zambia.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 35 (1993): 746-772. Haraway, Donna. In Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouse™: Feminism and Technoscience. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997, pp. 214-217. ISBN: 9780415912457. |
| 6 | Religion |
Cat’s Cradle, all. Geertz, Clifford. “Religion as a Cultural System.” In The Interpretation of Cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1973, pp. 87-125. ISBN: 9780465097197. Blier, Suzanne Preston. “Truth and Seeing: Magic, Custom, and Fetish in Art History.” In Bates, Robert H., V.Y. Mudimbe, and Jean O’Barr. Africa and the Disciplines: The Contribution of Research in Africa to the Social Sciences and Humanities. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. 139-166, but especially 139-143. ISBN: 9780226039015. Helmreich, Stefan. “The Spiritual in Artificial Life: Recombining Science and Religion in a Computational Culture Medium.” Science as Culture 6 (1997): 363-395. |
| 7 | Time |
Kindred, all. Dick, Philip K. “A Little Something for Us Tempunauts.” In Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick. New York, NY: Random House, 2002, pp. 401-423. ISBN: 9780375421518. Fabian, Johannes. “The Other Revisited: Critical Afterthoughts.” Anthropological Theory (2006): 139-152. |
| 8 | Cyborgs and Cyberworlds |
Neuromancer, all. “Technology and Metaphor.” In Science Fiction. pp. 146-180. Gomez-Peña, Guillermo. “Ethno-Cyborgs and Genetically Engineered Mexicans,” “The Virtual Barrio@The Other Frontier (or the Chicano Interneta).” In Dangerous Border Crossers: The Artist Talks Back. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000, pp. 45-57, 247-260. ISBN: 9780415182379. Zizek, Slavoj. “The Matrix, Or The Two Sides of Perversion.” In Rickman, Gregg. The Science Fiction Film Reader. Limelight Editions, 2004, pp. 406-428. ISBN: 9780879109943. |
| 9 | War, Childhood, and Initiation |
Ender’s Game, all. Honwana, Alcinda. “Recruitment and Initiation.” In Child Soldiers in Africa. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007, pp. 49-74. ISBN: 9780812219876. Gusterson, Hugh. “Becoming a Weapons Scientist.” In People of the Bomb: Portraits of America’s Nuclear Complex. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004, pp. 3-20. ISBN: 9780816638604. |
| 10 | Gender, Generation/Reproduction, Sexuality, Kinship |
The Left Hand of Darkness, all. “Gender.” In Science Fiction. pp. 91-117. Gant-Britton, Lisbeth. “Exploring Color Coding at the Beginning and End of the Twentieth Century in Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” In Into Darkness Peering: Race and Color in the Fantastic. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997, pp. 35-55. ISBN: 9780313300424. |
| 11 | Genesis, Eugenesis, Morphogenesis, Xenogenesis |
Brave New World, all. Dawn, all. Haraway, Donna. “From Science Fiction, Fictions of Science.” In Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Societies. New York, NY: Routledge, 1989, pp. 378-382. ISBN: 9780415902946. Franklin, Sarah. “Sex.” In Dolly Mixtures: The Remaking of Genealogy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007, pp. 19-45. ISBN: 9780822339205. |
| 12 | Presentations | No readings |
Supplemental Readings
Jameson, Fredric. “The Alien Body.” In Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. New York, NY: Verso, 2005, pp. 119-141. ISBN: 9781844670338.
Stover, Leon E. “Anthropology and Science Fiction.” Current Anthropology 14 (October 1973): 471-474.
Bloom, Julie. “Nigeria Says ‘District 9’ Is Not Welcome.” New York Times, September 20, 2009.
Organ Transplant
Cohen, Lawrence. “Where It Hurts: Indian Material for an Ethics of Organ Transplantation.” Daedalus 128 (Fall 1999): 135-165.
Sanal, Aslihan. “‘Robin Hood’ of Techno-Turkey or Organ Trafficking in the State of Ethical Beings.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 28 (September 2004): 281-309.
