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21L.434 | Fall 2024 | Undergraduate

# The Science Fiction of Freedom

This course has three required books. It is highly encouraged for you to use physical copies of these books. Please do not bring electronic copies of the readings to our meetings.

[Dick] Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Ballantine Books, 2008. ISBN: 9780345404473.

[Erdrich] Erdrich, Louise. Future Home of the Living God. Harper Perennial, 2018. ISBN: 9780062694065.

[Yu] Yu, Charles. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. Vintage Books, 2011. ISBN: 9780307739452.

### Session 1: Syllabus and Introductions

No assigned readings.

### Session 2

- Niccol, Andrew (director). Gattaca. Columbia Pictures, 1997.
- Optional: Mele, Alfred R. “My Compatibilist Proposal.” (2006).
  - There will be an in-class discussion of Alfred Mele’s zygote argument.

### Session 3

- Le Guin, Ursula K. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (Variations on a Theme by William James).” Utopian Studies 2, no. 1/2 (1991): 1–5.
- Rawls, John. “The Veil of Ignorance” and “The Rationality of the Parties” in A Theory of Justice. Belknap Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780674000780.

### Session 4

- Thomson, Judith Jarvis. “A Defense of Abortion.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 1, no. 1 (1971): 47–66.

### Session 5

- [Erdrich] Future Home, part I (pp. 3–119)

### Session 6

- [Erdrich] Future Home, part II (pp. 123–209)

### Session 7

- [Erdrich] Future Home, part III (pp. 213–267)

### Session 8

- Butler, Octavia. Bloodchild and Other Stories. Seven Stories Press, 2005, pp. 1–32. ISBN: 9781583226988.
- Berlin, Isaiah. “Two Concepts of Liberty” in Four Essays On Liberty. Oxford University Press, 1969, sections I-III. ISBN: 9780192810342.

### Session 9

- Ellison, Harlan. “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” in Greatest Hits, Union Square & Co., 2024. ISBN: 9781454953371.
- Sarte, Jean-Paul. Excerpt from Existentialism is a Humanism. Yale University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780300115468.

### Session 10: Content Exam 1

No assigned readings.

### Session 11

- [Yu] How to Live Safely, Module Alpha (pp. 3–91)
- Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Penguin Books, 1984. Part III, Sect. 1 and 2. pp. 447–460. ISBN: 9780140432442.

### Session 12

- [Yu] How to Live Safely, Modules Beta & Gamma (pp. 95–187)

### Session 13

- [Yu] How to Live Safely, Module Delta–Appendix A (pp. 191–233)

### Session 14

- [Dick] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Chs. 1–5 (pp. 3–57)
- Nozick, Robert, selections from Anarchy, State, and Utopia (C)

### Session 15

- [Dick] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Chs. 6–11 (pp. 58–119)

### Session 16

- [Dick] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Chs. 12–22 (pp. 120–224)

### Session 17

- Kafka, Franz. “The Metamorphosis” (C);

### Session 18

- Le Guin, Usula K., “Nine Lives” in The World Treasury of Science Fiction, edited by David G. Hartwell. Little Brown and Company, 1989, pp. 572–594. ISBN: 9780316349413.
- Optional Reading: Parfit, Derek. “Why Our Identity Is not What Matters” in Reasons and Persons (Oxford, 1986; online edn, Oxford Academic, 1 Nov. 2003), https://doi.org/10.1093/019824908X.003.0012
  - There will be an in-class discussion of Derek Parfit on identity.

### Session 19: Content Exam 2

No assigned readings.

### Session 20

- Thoreau, Henry David. “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” in Walden: 150th Anniversary Edition, edited by J. Lyndon Shanley, Revised. Princeton University Press, 2004, pp. 81–98. ISBN: 9780691096124.

### Session 21: Workshop on Presentations

No assigned readings.

### Session 22: Presentations on Speculative Thought Experiments

No assigned readings.

### Session 23: Presentations on Speculative Thought Experiments

No assigned readings.

## Course Info

##### Instructor

- Prof. Ben Mangrum

##### Departments

- Literature

##### As Taught In

Fall 2024

##### Level

Undergraduate

##### Topics

- Humanities
  - Literature
    - Fiction
- Society

##### Learning Resource Types

assignment Written Assignments
Readings

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