:-:science fiction:-:

Science Fiction-"The body's dream of becoming a machine."
J.G. Ballard, Project for a Glossary of the Twentieth Century

ENG 307U: Science Fiction, Course 83188 CH 224
Grace L. Dillon, PhD; Office CH 117Q; 725-8144; dillong@pdx.edu
Office hours: TR noon-1 p.m. and by appointment.

"The hive of dreams, windows heaped against the sky. I can see the pictures, but there is no path. I know you've come from there, but it's there . . . isn't there!"

Course Requirements
You will write dialogue journal responses and complete a take-home final exam. The dialogue journal response work will be assigned at the session before the work is discussed. They should be typed double-spaced 12 point font 2-3 pages long (minimum) and can vary from analyzing critically the stories, novels, films, or essays assigned to experimenting in a short story or film script format with the styles, tropes, and techniques noted in the assigned readings. These are helpful as start-ups in group conversations and discussions and will be collected at the end of each session unless otherwise noted. These are also helpful pre-writes for essay responses written for the final exam.

Your final grade in the course will be computed as follows: class participation including dialogue journal responses (70%) and final exam (30%).

Required Course Texts:

         - Mieville, China. The Scar. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002.
         - The Norton Book of Science Fiction. Le Guin, Ursula K., and Brian Attebery, eds.
          New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1993 rptd.1999. (Norton)
         - Smart Copy packet. (Pck.)

Supplemental Texts:
            Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation
            Blade Runner
            David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, Naked Lunch, and Videodrome
            Philip K. Dick’s Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep
            Dick, Philip K. Ubik.
            The Fifth Element
            The Ghost in the Shell
            William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Count Zero or Mona Lisa Overdrive
            Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto (the entire essay)
            Ray Kurzweil, “The Human Machine Merger: Are We Headed for the Matrix?”
             China Mieville’s King Rat
            China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station
            Minority Report
            Johnny Mnemonic
            Rose City Hotel
            Larry Mc Caffrey’s Storming the Reality Studio
            Strange Days
            Tank Girl
            James Tiptree, Jr. “The Girl Who Was Plugged In”
            Plato’s Timaeus
            The Twelve Monkeys

Course Schedule: Readings should be completed by the date assigned.

WEEK ONE:

M 6/23 Introduction to course.

T 6/24 Cordwainer Smith’s “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard” (49), James H. Schmitz’s “Balanced Ecology”(98), and Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The New Atlantis”(317) (all Norton). Utopias/dystopias, totalitarian governments/pacifist anarchies, and environmental balance.

W 6/25 Frederick Pohl’s “Day Million” (166), Harlan Ellison’s “Strange Wine,” (350), Michael G. Coney’s “The Byrds”(501), Eileen Gunn’s “Stable Strategies for Middle Management” (705) (all Norton) Biogenetic morphing and metamorphosis including intertextuality of Kafka’s.

R 6/26 Philip K. Dick’s “Frozen Journey” (386), Michael Swanwick’s “A Midwinter’s Tale” (733) (both Norton) and Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Circular Ruins” (Pck.). Clips from Blade Runner and The Twelve Monkeys. Time slippage, reality slippage, and false memories.

WEEK TWO:

M 6/30 Samuel Delaney’s “High Weir” (183), Octavia E. Butler’s “Speech Sounds” (513), Mike Resnick’s “Kirinyaga” (733), and Diane Glancy’s “Aunt Parnetta’s “Electric Blisters” (814) (all Norton). Racism, race, post-structuralism, and the Neo-Luddite impulse.

T 7/1 William Gibson’s “The Gernsback Continuum” (457) (Norton) and first chapter of Neuromancer excerpt, William Irwin’s “Computers, Caves, and Oracles: Neo and Socrates in The Matrix and Philosophy, and Sadie Plant’s Zeros and Ones excerpt ( all Pck.). Hyperreality.

W 7/2 James Patrick Kelly’s “Rat” (Norton 654), Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix excerpt, and Timothy Leary’s Cyberpunk article (both Pck.). The Fifth Element, Johnny Mnemonic, and Tank Girl. Humour and identity construction in cyberpunk.

R 7/3 James Tiptree, Jr.’s “The Women Men Don’t See” (255), Candas Jane Dorsey’s “(Learning About) Machine Sex” (746) (both Norton), Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Rock That Changed Things,” Ted Chiang’s “Liking What You See: A Documentary,”and Joan Gordon’s “Yin and Yang Duke it Out” (all Pck.). Overt and covert forms of feminism.

WEEK THREE:

M 7/7 Samuel Delaney’s “Aye, and Gomorrah,” Nalo Hopkinson’s “Ganger (Ball Lightning),” and Octavia Butler’s “The Evening and the Morning and the Night” (all Pck.) Queer theory, teledildonic suits, and hyperempathy.

T 7/8 Bruce Sterling’s “We See Things Differently” ( Norton 762), Neuromancer, chapter 4 and the Modern Panther operation, Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Forgiveness Day,” and Paul Di Filippo’s “Little Worker” (all Pck.) Science fiction tropes of terrorism.

W 7/9 China Mieville’s The Scar. Be sure to have read the novel in full by this date. Fantasy-epic in science fiction and steampunk. Post-colonial theory , neo-tribalism, and Hardt and Negri’s Empire.

R 7/10 China Mieville’s The Scar. Edward Said’s Exotic Other, Lacan’s “Mirror Stage”, the Remades, techno-primitives, and the bio-mechanical.

WEEK FOUR:

M 7/14 China Mieville’s The Scar. Blade I and II. Vampirism, dhampir, and vampire-cyborg consumption.

T 7/15 Philip K. Dick’s “The Minority Report” (Pck.) Strange Days and Minority Report referencing Enemy of the State and futuristic surveillance techniques.

W 7/16 The Animatrix (2003), Spirited Away(2002), and Ringu (1998). The Ghost in the Machine referencing The Ghost in the Shell and Michael Benedickt on the electronic city and cyberspace. (See also Lain series.)

R 7/17 Final Exam due.