There Goes the Neighborhood: Teaching Science Fiction in Academia

By Kerri Beauchesne

July 2008

Space, the final frontier . . . in the college literature classroom, at least. Despite hundreds

of college literature courses dedicated to science fiction (or, as its proponents prefer, speculative

fiction, SF) and an increasingly mature body of criticism, SF remains marginalized in the vast

majority of college English departments (Bengels 428). I do not bring up SF’s lack of scholarly

prestige in order to add my voice to its chorus of apologists but rather to highlight a problem in

teaching it: there simply exists no formal pedagogy for science fiction. This is no small

challenge for the prospective teacher of SF given the genre’s many uncertainties, not least of

which are the questions of defining science fiction itself and its canon. Some theorists argue, in

fact, that SF’s unique qualities demand its own style of reading and criticism – that, in essence,

traditional and current ways of approaching “literary” texts do not necessarily apply to SF and, in

fact, may inhibit understanding of the science fiction text (e.g., Delany 292, 298).

In this essay, I review the eclectic pedagogical offerings extant in the critical literature.1 I

begin with an overview of the earliest known college courses in science fiction and examine how

SF has been taught from 1953 to the present, touching on the definition and formation of the

genre, the SF canon and its formation, and pedagogical principles (both general and specific to

SF) along the way. I conclude with some speculations on the future of teaching SF and how SF

might inform pedagogy in general.

1
A review and analysis of syllabi available online and through surveys such as that published in Science-Fiction
Studies 23 would be fruitful but is beyond the scope of this paper.

1
“To Explore Strange New Worlds”: Pioneering Profs

The City College of New York commissioned the first science fiction course in 1953

(Moskowitz 411 - 13). “Co-taught” by Sam Moskowitz and Robert Frazier, the course cost a

total of $19 per student for twelve weekly sessions and did not confer college credit (413). I put

“co-taught” in quotation marks because, according to Moskowitz’s colorful account, Frazier was

little more than an opportunist valuable primarily for his college degree: Moskowitz did not have

one and could not, therefore, teach a class by himself (412 - 13). Although he lacked a formal

college education, he had a broad, even exceptional background in science fiction that qualified

him to teach The First Science Fiction Course: he had published SF stories and articles of his

own, he was editor of an SF magazine (Science-Fiction + ), and he knew personally many of the

star SF authors of his time. This background gave him an intimate knowledge, not just of SF

literature, but of the publishing industry and people responsible at different levels for the

development of the genre – including the fan community, which participated by writing letters to

SF magazines and submitting their own stories (411 – 13). For the first class session, Moskowitz

gave an abridged version of a guest lecture he had delivered at New York University in 1950

regarding the definition and history of science fiction (411, 413). The remaining eleven sessions

centered on guest speakers, including SF luminaries Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Lester

del Rey, who participated without compensation largely for the validation of their work that

lecturing in college accorded (415). The guest speakers discussed such practical topics as the

structure of the SF novel and short story, characterization, style, dealing with editors, and the ins

and outs of the SF market (415). In one memorable session to which his guest speaker, author

and editor Harry Bates, failed to show (the reason a colorful story of its own), Moskowitz handed

out copies of a manuscript Bates had revised for submission and walked the students line-by-line

2
through the changes Bates had made, and why. A city college auditor who was present for that

session said it was by far the best, most useful college class he had ever observed, and he would

definitely recommend the course be offered again (415 – 16). The course ran for an additional

three semesters under Moskowitz’s leadership before he turned it over to Hans Stefan Santesson,

who had come in as a guest speaker and continued attending the class because he was so

intrigued with it. Moskowitz went on to head up the editorial staff at a leading frozen foods

magazine (417 – 21).

Moskowitz’s course is an interesting study for several reasons, besides being the first of

its kind. His professional background in SF gave him an historical perspective (and enviable

inside connections for guest speakers!) on the literary aspects of SF and on the industry as a

whole. His decision to construct the course around guest speakers had the effect not just of

bringing “the stars” to the students but of introducing multiple kinds of expertise in the

classroom – still, in pedagogical terms, a teacher-centered approach but one that did not focus

entirely on Moskowitz himself, instead acknowledging the multivocal quality of the field.2

Further, the guest speakers lectured not as if to “just students” but as if to peers in a thinking and

writing SF community. Moskowitz’s practical approach, in that he focused on topics useful to

the aspiring SF writer, reflected the tendency of SF to feed upon dialogue between the SF

industry (publishers and writers) and the participatory fan community. I find it interesting that

he mentions the study of SF literature only in a passing reference to the anthology he chose for

the course (The Science Fiction Handbook by L. Sprague de Camp, 1953); the rest of his article

reads as an entertaining personal history of the people involved in “the early days” (413). This

emphasis on the people who shaped the genre, the processes by which that first SF course was

2
Moskowitz did teach the class as a writing workshop one semester at his students’ request, but he judged it a
failure (14 out of 18 dropped out of the class) and decided “to never again let the inmates run the asylum” (419).

3
solicited and designed, and the practical methods orientation of the course conveys an

excitement, not about any particular SF story or theme or critical approach, but rather about the

sense of being “in on” the creation of SF and participating in SF history itself. This excitement

about getting involved with and influencing the industry characterized many subsequent science

fiction courses through the 1970s.

The 1960s witnessed a trickle of credit-bearing SF courses by pioneers like Mark

Hillegas, Bruce Franklin, Jack Williamson, and Tom Clareson (Mullen 373). The English

departments cherished little enthusiasm for the courses, but newspapers and magazines carried

story after story about the colleges’ new willingness to teach popular fiction and to reconsider

the canon (371 – 2). These courses, unlike Moskowitz’s, were taught as surveys, as evidenced

by their course descriptions: “Representative works in science fiction from 1888 to the present”;

“A survey of science fiction from Swift to the present”; “A survey of science fiction in English

from Thomas More to Robert A. Heinlein, with consideration of the historical contexts in science

and politics. One purpose in the course is to distinguish between serious fiction and the

sentimental melodrama of most popular fiction” (373 – 4). Several observations about these

courses present themselves. First, each includes texts that predate the term “science fiction,”

which originated in the 1920s with Hugo Gernsback, publisher of Amazing Stories. The

inclusion of canonical authors such as Plato, Swift, and More indicates a desire to ground SF –

which in the popular imagination was associated with pulp fiction – in a firm tradition of

accepted, literary works. This goal is also evident in the founding of scholarly journals and

professional organizations devoted to SF in that period: Extrapolation (1959), Science Fiction

Writers of America (1965), the Science Fiction Research Association (1970), Foundation: The

International Review of Science Fiction (1972), and Science-Fiction Studies (1973). Second,

4
these early survey courses privilege an historical approach, rather than a thematic or ideological

or creative writing approach. Third, perusal of the course text listings reveals an emphasis on

novels that later became the core of the “SF canon,” if such a thing truly exists, with very little

attention to short stories, films, or the pulp magazines and mass-market paperbacks that gave rise

to the SF genre as it was generally conceived by the public. These early courses took what

Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., described as the “‘high’ road,” primarily including texts, like

Shelley’s Frankenstein or Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, that would qualify for the syllabus in

a more traditional literature course (385). Such an approach might have been considered the

safest one, given the general resistance at that time to adding popular fiction, especially SF, to

the curriculum.

Science fiction courses spread much more rapidly in the 1970s, burgeoning to an

estimated 500 courses in the United States and Canada between 1971 and 1974 (Williamson

375). Professors and students seemed to gain energy and momentum as “[s]coffing

conservatives lent a spice of drama to the effort” (375). Jack Williamson goes so far as to call

the 1970s “a golden age of sf in the classroom” (376). Enrollments skyrocketed, a development

that David Samuelson attributes to “student interest in many things opposed to staid convention”

(390). Numerous SF anthologies were published during this time, most notably Dangerous

Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, edited by Robert

Silverberg, and Science Fiction: Contemporary Mythology: The SFWA-SFRA Anthology, edited

by Martin Harry Greenberg, et al (Kelly). Oddly enough, the growing popularity of science

fiction in mainstream film and television may have been the impetus for a fall-off in enthusiasm

in the late 1970s and early 1980s. James Gunn writes, “No doubt we have made some strides

toward acceptance since the early days when Sam Moskowitz, Mark Hillegas, Tom Clareson,

5
and Jack Williamson were pioneering the teaching of science fiction, but we may have lost our

outsider edge, both with students and our colleagues and maybe even with ourselves” (378).

Brian Stableford ascribes this loss of momentum in some part to the increased volume of

mediocre SF on TV and in print; Sarah Brouillette concurs, citing an industry shift from small,

independent publishers to large publishing companies and national bookselling chains that

sought easily marketable series, preferably based on blockbuster movies and TV series such as

Star Wars and Star Trek, as opposed to more cognitively challenging, literary works that were

harder to pigeonhole and market to a large audience.

“To Seek Out New Life”: Recent Pedagogical Approaches

Whatever loss of novelty may be attributable to SF’s mainstream components (and,

perhaps, the speed at which our technology is overtaking the speculations of yesteryear), SF

courses have maintained a small but persistent presence in universities over the past three

decades. Polling its readers, Science-Fiction Studies produced a list of 404 college SF courses in

1996. Although SF still has not entered the university English mainstream, its community of

scholars is building an impressive body of criticism and theories about SF and how it relates to

our present historical moment, and they are passing that knowledge on to their students in

increasingly creative ways.

Before crafting a college course in science fiction, however, a professor must first define

the field. What is science fiction (besides the all-too-familiar space adventure story), and what

does it do? Most scholars will agree that it is a literature of ideas (e.g., Freedman 199 – 200,

Finch 28 – 29, Mendlesohn 287); Mendlesohn goes so far as to say that SF is more a mode than a

genre, and “the way of science fiction is essentially ideological” (287). Darko Suvin calls this

mode “cognitive estrangement,” which consists of “an imaginative framework alternative to the

6
author’s empirical environment” (375). Referring specifically to literary utopias (arguably a

subset of SF), Kenneth Roemer writes that cognitive estrangement “invite[s] readers to distance

themselves from familiar worldviews”; it creates “openings; opportunities for (silent readerly)

dialoguing with the guides, visitors, and foils [in the utopia]; invitations to imaging and thought

experiments” (Utopian Audiences 26). The object is to remove the reader from his or her

comfort zone in order to force an ideological confrontation.

These various brands of cognitive estrangement can render the SF text impermeable in

some respects to traditional literary criticism. Samuel Delany cautions, “The play of meanings,

contradictory or otherwise, that makes up the SF text is organized in a way radically different

from that of the mundane text” (292). In other words, the science-fictional elements serve a

more profound function than simple scenery; the reader must engage with those elements in

order to understand the themes and philosophical questions of the text. Mendlesohn proposes a

“grammar” of SF that may prove a useful starting point for analysis: dissonance is induced by

the novum, possibly a technological advancement or new social order (287); rupture is the

cognitive estrangement the narrator and/or the reader experiences as a result of the novum (287 –

8); and resolution, in true SF, does not return everything to the status quo or end in a “happily

ever after,” but rather points to the permanent consequences of the rupture, as well as a new

beginning (289). A useful analysis, however, will not simply consist of defining the dissonances

or nova or other elements in the SF text – what perhaps sets SF apart from a “regular” (or, to use

Delany’s term, “mundane”) text is its invitation to the reader, asking or demanding a debate on

some crucial issue. Sheila Finch classifies the “grand philosophical themes of science fiction”

into four broad questions: Do humans need to believe in a “supreme something”? What

will/should we do if our machines turn on us? What if new technologies change our familial and

7
societal values? What does it mean to be “human”? (33). The text may suggest an answer or

solution, but the best SF creates a true ethical dilemma for the reader to work through. The

instructor desiring a more theoretical framework may find Marx, Derrida, or Bakhtin useful, to

name a few, but these theorists may be more appropriate for graduate students, or at least upper-

class majors. More suitable for sophomores might be myth criticism, as several instructors have

suggested. Attebery, in his Fantastic Literature course (incorporating science fiction, fantasy,

and utopias), gives his students a thorough grounding in myths and legends and teaches them to

apply those principles to the “fantastic” course readings. He tries “to get students to investigate

the way different conceptions of reality affect the way we interpret literature” (407).

Whatever theoretical approach the professor decides to take, however, he or she must

keep in mind that students who are not already avid SF readers may have difficulty

understanding what they read – even, and perhaps especially, literature majors who read difficult

nineteenth century and Russian authors with facility. Roemer, through an exercise in which he

asked students to describe how they would turn their hometown into a utopia (assuming they had

unlimited support and resources), discovered that most of them were what he called “speculative

illiterates,” that they posited very superficial changes and seemed unaware of the possibilities for

radically transforming a society (“Utopian Literature” 394). Delany points out that SF has

protocols, conventions, and a language of its own that are “best learned early and by exposure”

(298). Students not already fluent in SF may have trouble with a text’s nova and neologisms, as

well as the process of imagining the alternate world and its rules. Delany suggests taking the

time early on to walk the students “slowly, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence” through a

text, “checking on what has been responded to and what has not been” (294). Gunn typically

uses Philip Jose Farmer’s “Sail On! Sail On!” to model SF reading protocols line by line (381).

8
 Another important consideration for the professor is what texts to teach. Numerous SF

anthologies are available, each making its own bid for canonicity. However, as Rodden points

out, “English literature curricula – not anthologies – define periods and genres, and thereby

establish formal, exclusivist, stable, professionally recognized canons” (523). Given the relative

youth of the SF genre, the canon must be presumed provisional and fluid (as, in fact, Jane

Tompkins would argue for any canon), but examining other professors’ preferences can help

narrow the field (course texts for several prominent professors/theorists are attached in Appendix

A). James Gunn sums up the general organizational options the professor has: study the most

influential SF novels and what “made them great”; group SF texts thematically by the moral or

ethical issues they raise; or study all kinds of SF texts (including pulp magazines and movies)

chronologically in order to examine the history of the genre and how it developed (379). Gunn

has used each approach himself and claims each is equally valid, but he seems to lean toward the

thematic or historical approaches. Samuelson teaches a variety of canonical and non-canonical

texts, while Finch advocates using the most recent, cutting-edge short fiction from SF magazines

and “year’s best” anthologies. Csicsery, however, writes, “Perhaps there is a place for a

hardcore genre course (pulp-to-cultural-riches) . . . But life is short . . . The time for teaching the

hard stuff is the four years of college” (385).

After choosing course texts, the question of assignments arises. Some SF professors stick

with the traditional midterm-paper-final approach, but not all. Since the typical SF

undergraduate course includes a diverse crowd of literature majors and non-literature-majors,

most professors advise against assigning formal literary critiques. Such critiques would be

problematic under the best circumstances due to the novelty of SF to most students. Instead,

Samuelson suggests having students concentrate on such issues as “the plausibility of fictional

9
science and technology, propagandistic elements in extrapolated societies and lifestyles, and/or

psychological issues from unbalanced narrators and psychoanalysis to myth and symbol” (390).

Given the high level of participation that a SF text demands of its reader, many professors

require reader response journals; for example, Attebery has his students summarize the reading,

then write down their reactions to the text, including connections with their own experiences and

current events. He ensures maximum participation by letting students use their journals, but not

the texts, on each test (410). Roemer has students note and explain their positive and negative

reactions to characters and other story elements, then discuss in class. These observations and

arguments can form the basis of their paper later in the semester (395). In larger classes, “idea

cards” can help the professor stay connected with his students, get feedback, and improve

participation. Blackmore has his students turn in an idea card each week, with “one written idea,

comment, question, or concern about a course issue,” but not about “housekeeping” issues like

grades, etc. (44). He puts them into two groups: questions he will simply answer for the class,

and “generative questions” he thinks may spark discussion; then he spends time each Friday

going through the cards in class (44 – 5). The students are tentative at first, but they quickly

begin improving their interpretive skills (48).

Some professors have gotten very creative with major projects, particularly those who are

making a conscious effort to decenter the classroom and encourage students to participate more

actively. For example, Samuelson divides a large reading list among small discussion groups;

they discuss the readings and report to the class, thus exposing everyone to more texts than they

would have time to read individually (391 – 2). Roemer uses Guided Design for a group project

in which students analyze and try to solve, in stages, different problems facing an intentional

(utopian) community (“Utopian Literature” 397 – 8). Sparks, however, made perhaps the most

10
logical innovation for the SF classroom: she put it on the Web. That is no longer a novelty in

2008 (several of my own courses have either been entirely online or had a discussion board

component), but it was positively revolutionary when Sparks did it in 1996. Dispensing with her

usual lectures on historical background, she instead assigned readings from The Encyclopedia of

Science Fiction and put lecture notes and related hyperlinks on a course website

(http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/dial/sfclass/sfsyl05.html) (4 – 5). She used the extra class

time to hold workshops on web design and writing HTML, then set her students loose to create

their own web pages for individual and group projects (1 – 2). She writes that this change in

class structure profoundly affected student participation: now students not only did their work,

they also put in hours and hours of extra time in order to make their web pages “just right.”

They cared more about the work because they were publishing it not just for their classmates, but

for a potentially global audience, and as a result, they often continued reworking their web pages

long after grades were issued (13 – 14). Roemer argues that nontraditional activities like these

are indispensible and revitalize the classroom: “[P]rofessors will have to do more than dream up

different types of papers and exams. They should at least experiment with different approaches

to the entire classroom experience” (397). Such practices not only get the students’ attention, but

also empower them as they participate actively in defining and solving problems, making

meaning, and learning to negotiate through group dynamics (394).

“To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before”: The Future of (SF) Pedagogy

In fact, such unconventional teaching practices, particularly the incorporation of

computers and the Internet, can empower students in any classroom, not just the SF classroom.

The rapid changes in computer technology over the past twenty years have outpaced educators’

ability, as a whole, to keep up; students are now all but hardwired to the Internet, and yet we

11
continue with the same Victorian or Arnoldian or whatever habitual teaching practices we’ve

used for too long. For education to become and remain relevant to our students, we must explore

ways to make good use of the available technology – and not just connect our laptops to the

media projectors to show DVD clips, but rather let technology inspire and inform radical new

structures, ways of learning, making meaning, and acting out that knowledge. And science

fiction can play a role in inspiring such change: The nature of science fiction is “to confront the

future, no matter how unpromising a critical and utopian activity that may seem (as now) to be”

(Freedman 199 – 200). Let us become speculative writers of the future of our own classrooms

and inspire others join us on a mission to explore “strange new worlds” – those new paradigms

we can imagine and create together.

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 Works Cited

Attebery, Brian. “Teaching Fantastic Literature.” Science-Fiction Studies 23 (1996): 406 – 10.

Bengels, Barbara. “The Pleasures and Perils of Teaching Science Fiction on the College Level.”

Science-Fiction Studies 23 (1996): 429 – 31.

Brouillette, Sarah. “Corporate Publishing and Canonization: Neuromancer and Science-Fiction

Publishing in the 1970s and Early 1980s.” Book History 5 (2002): 187 – 208. Project

MUSE. UT Arlington Library, Arlington, TX. 22 Jul. 2008 <http://muse.jhu.edu>.

Candelaria, Matthew. “Before We Begin: Some Notes on Early SF Criticism.” Speculations on

Speculation: Theories of Science Fiction. James Gunn and Matthew Candelaria, eds.

Lanham: Scarecrow, 2005. xiii – xix.

Csicsery-Ronay Jr., Istvan. “The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction.” Science-Fiction Studies

23 (1996): 385 – 8.

Delany, Samuel R. “Some Presumptuous Approaches to Science Fiction.” Speculations on

Speculation: Theories of Science Fiction. James Gunn and Matthew Candelaria, eds.

Lanham: Scarecrow, 2005. 289 – 299.

Finch, Sheila. “Dispatches from the Trenches: Science Fiction in the Classroom.” Extrapolation

41.1 (2000): 28 – 36.

Freedman, Carl. Critical Theory and Science Fiction. Hanover: Wesleyan, 2000.

Gunn, James. “Teaching Science Fiction.” Science-Fiction Studies 23 (1996): 377 – 84.

Kelly, Mark R. “The Locus Index to SF Awards: 1999 Locus All-Time Poll.” Locus Online:

Science Fiction News, Reviews, Resources, Perspectives. 1999. Locus Magazine. 4

Aug. 2008 < http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/LocusAT1999.html>.

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Mendlesohn, Farah. “Is There Any Such Thing as Children’s Science Fiction?: A Position

Piece.” The Lion and the Unicorn 28 (2004): 284 – 313. Project MUSE. UT Arlington

Library, Arlington, TX. 22 Jul. 2008 <http://muse.jhu.edu>.

Moskowitz, Sam. “The First College-Level Course in Science Fiction.” Science-Fiction Studies

23 (1996): 411 – 22.

Mullen, R. D. “Science Fiction in Academe.” Science-Fiction Studies 23 (1996): 371 – 4.

Rodden, John. “Reputation, Canon-Formation, Pedagogy: George Orwell in the Classroom.”

College English 53.5 (1991): 503 – 30. Project MUSE. UT Arlington Library,

Arlington, TX. 28 Jul. 2008 <http://muse.jhu.edu>.

Roemer, Kenneth M. Utopian Audiences: How Readers Locate Nowhere. Amherst: U. of

Mass., 2003.

Roemer, Kenneth M. “Utopian Literature, Empowering Students, and Gender Awareness.”

Science-Fiction Studies 23 (1996): 393 – 405.

Samuelson, David N. “Adventures in Paraliterature.” Science-Fiction Studies 23 (1996): 389 –

92.

Stableford, Brian. “The Third Generation of Genre Science Fiction.” Science-Fiction Studies 23

(1996): 321 – 330.

Suvin, Darko. “On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre.” College English 34.3 (1972): 372

– 82. Project MUSE. UT Arlington Library, Arlington, TX. 4 Aug. 2008

<http://muse.jhu.edu>.

Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction 1790 – 1860.

New York: Oxford, 1985.

Williamson, Jack. “On Science Fiction in College.” Science-Fiction Studies 23 (1996): 375 – 6.

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 Appendix A

Suggested Texts

James Gunn

In his article, Gunn appends a list of 98 stories he assigns in his Intensive Institute on
Science Fiction graduate course, grouped thematically. Selections and short stories come from
his Road to Science Fiction series:

 Changing attitudes: Frankenstein, Rappaccini’s Daughter, The Cold Equations, The

Diamond Lens, The Engine at Heartspring’s Center, The Fate of Humanity, The Star, The


Machine Stops, Twilight.
Travel – encountering the unknown: A True Story, Mandeville’s Travels, Somnium,
Mellonta Tauta, Journey to the World Underground, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under


the Sea, Around the Moon, With the Night Mail.
Utopias – and getting there: Utopia, The New Atlantis, Looking Backward.
 Satire: A Voyage to the Moon, A Voyage to Laputa, The Revolt of the Pedestrians, Brave


New World.


Natural mysteries: The Damned Thing, The People of the Pit, The Red One.
Travel and adventure: She, The Chessmen of Mars, A Martian Odyssey, Proxima


Centauri, Black Destroyer.
The mad scientist: The New Accelerator, The Tissue-Culture King, With Folded Hands,


Brooklyn Project.
The history of the future: Last and First Men, The Faithful, Requiem, What’s It Like Out


There?


The idea is the thing: Hyperpilosity, Nightfall, Reason, Critical Factor.
The nature of reality: All You Zombies --, We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,


Sundance.
The future of humanity – man will change: Desertion; Dolphin’s Way, The Game of Rat


and Dragon, Who Can Replace a Man?, Day Million; Tricentennial.
The last (atomic) war: Thunder and Roses, The Million-Year Picnic, That Only a Mother,


The Terminal Beach, The Big Flash.


Strange phenomena: Mimsy Were the Borogoves, The Sentinel, Kyrie.
Social comment: Coming Attraction, Slow Tuesday Night, Aye, and Gomorrah, Stand on


Zanzibar, Harrison Bergeron.
Individual visions: Fondly Fahrenheit, The Streets of Ashkelon, I Have No Mouth and I


Must Scream, Masks, Pilgrimage to Earth.
Feminism: The Left Hand of Darkness, When It Changed, The Heat Death of the


Universe, Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand, Abominable.
Aliens and alienation: Born of Man and Woman, Nobody Bothers Gus, The Dance of the


Changer and the Three, The Last Flight of Dr. Ain, View From a Height.
The literary touch: The Library of Babel, With a Finger in My I, Rogue Tomato, The


Word Sweep.
Serious themes: Where No Sun Shines, Angouleme, Uncoupling, The Tower of Ashes.

15
  Jeu d’esprit: My Boy Friend’s Name Is Jello, The First Sally (A) or Trurl’s Electronic


Bard, The Ghost Writer, The World SF Convention of 2080.


Traditional sf: The Moon Moth, Light of Other Days, Air Raid.
Fiction and science; science and fiction: Particle Theory, Exposures.
Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.

 Books: The Time Machine, Wells; Star Maker, Stapledon; We, Zamyatin; Nineteen
Eighty-Four, Orwell; Frankenstein, Shelley; Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
Stevenson; Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller; The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin; Lathe of
Heaven, Le Guin; The Female Man, Russ; A Scanner Darkly, Dick; The Man in the High
Castle, Dick; Solaris, Lem; Roadside Picnic, Strugatsky; Stalker, Tarkovsky;
Neuromancer, Gibson; The Girl Who Was Plugged In, Tiptree; The Embedding, Watson;


Hyperion, Simmons; Red Mars, Robinson.
Films: Stalker, Forbidden Planet, The Thing, Metropolis, 2001, Close Encounters of the
Third Kind, E.T., Alien, Blade Runner, Videodrome, Terminators 1 and 2.
David Samuelson

 Books: We, Zamiatin; Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller; books by Wells, Huxley, Brunner,
Burgess, and Lessing; Aldiss, Clarke, and Stapledon; 19th-century writers: Shelley,
Bellamy, Poe, Verne, and Wells; non-Anglophone writers: Calvino, Capek, Lem, Merle,
and the Strugatskis; Asimov, Bester, Clarke, Clement, Heinlein, Herbert, Miller, Pohl,
and Sturdeon for “modern” sf; Aldiss, Ballard Bear, Benford, Budrys, Delany, Dick,
Disch, Gibson, Le Guin, McIntyre, Russ, and Vonnegut for more recent work; for
historical purposes, Gernsback, “Doc” Smith, even “John Taine,” among pre-moderns;
Carol Hill, Marge Piercy, and Lawrence Sanders as contemporary “outsiders” or “fellow-
travelers”; Nova, Delany; John Cramer, Niven and Pournelle, Preuss, and Slonczewski


for hard SF; Delany, Le Guin, Lem.
Short stories: Tiptree, Butler; “The Martian Way,” Asimov; “Universe,” Heinlein;
“Crucifixus Etiam,” Miller; “Vaster than Empires and More Slow,” Le Guin.
 Films: Things to Come, Lost Horizon, 2001, Orlando, and Brazil; Solaris, 2001: A Space
Odyssey; Blade Runner.
Kenneth Roemer

 “Typically, by the completion of Problem 2, they have read Genesis and utopias and
dystopias written by Plato, Plutarch, Campanella, More, Swift, Bellamy, Gilman,
Skinner, Huxley, Orwell, Rimmer, Le Guin, Piercy, and Lessing. They’ve encountered
descriptions of Ephrata, Shaker communities, New Harmony, Amana, Brook Farm,
Oneida, Shalam, Helicon Hall, and late 20th-century urban communes” (398).
Brian Attebery

 First part of semester – historical approach: Classical or mythological texts that illustrate
alternative constructions of reality of the sort that fantasy writers imitate and/or steal
from: Homeric poems, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Gilgamesh (the students aren’t as
fond of H. R. Ellis Davidson’s Gods and Myths of Northern Europe); Apuleius’s The

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 Golden Ass as a lead-in to C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces; Barre Toelken’s Dynamics
of Folklore; Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day (similar to religious legends in the Mormon
church); myth, legend, folktale, and ballad; Barre Toelken’s Dynamics of Folklore; Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight (link to J. R. R. Tolkien); Renaissance (or Early Modern)
texts (skips Drayton and Milton to concentrate on Shakespeare), A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, The Tempest, A Winter’s Tale, or Pericles.
 Remainder of semester – eclectic: Shelley’s Frankenstein, MacDonald’s Lilith, Dickens’
Christmas Carol; Baum’s The Wizard of Oz as a lead-in to Ryman’s Was; Lewis’ Till We
Have Faces, Delany’s The Einstein Intersection, Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness
and Always Coming Home, Zelazny’s The Dream Master or Lord of Light, Larsen’s Silk
Road, Willard’s Things Invisible to See, Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (all of these are


strongly intertextual works).
Short stories from the following anthologies: Rabkin’s Fantastic Worlds, Silverberg’s
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Le Guin and Attebery’s Norton Book of Science
Fiction, Bear’s New Legends, Carter’s The Bloody Chamber.
Sheila Finch

 Texts she just mentions: “The Cold Equations,” Godwin; “The Machine Stops,” Forster;
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Le Guin; “Harrison Bergeron,” Vonnegut;
“There Will Come Soft Rains,” Bradbury; Solaris, Lem.
 Texts that work well: Dinner at Deviant’s Palace, Powers; Stand on Zanzibar, Brunner;
A Clockwork Orange, Burgess; “almost anything” by Le Guin or Joanna Russ; Child of
Fortune, Spinrad; “Billenium,” Ballard; “Blood Child,” Butler; Timescape, Benford.
 Texts that just use SF for props and novelty: Doris Lessing; Margaret Atwood; Roger’s
Version, Updike.
W. A. Senior

 Texts that work well: Blood Music, Greg Bear; Frankenstein, Shelley; War of the Worlds
and The Time Machine, Wells, Princess of Mars, Burroughs; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,
Stevenson; Gate to Women’s Country, Tepper.
 Texts that haven’t worked well: Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin; Foundation, Asimov;
Caves of Steel, Asimov; Childhood’s End, Clarke; Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein;
Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller; The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood; Neuromancer, Gibson.
 Mentions Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell, as a text he’s surprised to discover they haven’t
read yet.

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