The Dispossessed

day 1
ENGL 2212
11 March 2024
Housekeeping
● The Dispossessed
○ chapters 4 – 5 for Wednesday
○ chapters 6 - 7 for Friday
○ chapters 8 - 9 for Monday 18 March
○ chapters 10 - 12 for Wednesday 20 March

● Roadside Picnic
○ chapters 1 - 2 for Monday 1 April

● Quiz on Dispossessed for Wednesday 20 March

● Exam for 22 March
● any questions?
lecture outline
● in-class writing
● science fiction, structure, and history
● walls, communication, and aliens
in-class writing
Late in The Dispossessed, chapter one we find this line: “His escorts took him into
a building and to a room which, they explained, was “his.” Why is the last word of
this sentence in scare quotes? Why does Le Guin call attention to this word?
What does this attention have to do with the novel so far? What does it have to do
with our theme of the alien?
science fiction, structure, and history

genre ➡ science fiction ⬇ fantasy ⬇ horror ⬇

structure ➡ paradigm story disappointment

event 1 ➡ novum wrongness sighting

narrative process estrangement thinning thickening

➡

event 2 ➡ cognition recognition revel

endstate ➡ arrival return aftermath

science fiction, structure, and history
● These genres represent a new, aesthetic distinction between “realism” and
“the fantastic”
● They emerge with historical consciousness
● They each deal with history and the related question of difference in
contrasting manners
science fiction, structure, and history
● Science fiction: the most “modern” of these genres; treats history as real, as
what we must work through
○ Arrival is the conclusion of this process of working through difference

○ cf. existence

● the structure of science fiction can be called “paradigm”

○ paradigms are models for thought

○ science fiction models historical, political, and scientific progress (or critiques and complicates
our understanding of such progress)
science fiction, structure, and history
● Fantasy: the most “premodern” of these genres; treats history as real, as what
we must escape from
○ Return is the escape from history into an undifferentiated world

○ cf. consistence

● the structure of fantasy can be called “story”

○ a story is a form of narrative that must be told (rather than summarized or otherwise
abstracted)

○ the meaning of story only emerges in the telling (it must be experienced as told, rather than
understood as simply contained in this or that medium waiting for its audience)
science fiction, structure, and history
● Horror: the most “postmodern” of these genres; treats history as false, what
never existed
○ Aftermath is the state we are left in when we no longer believe in history or the meaning it
affords

○ cf. subsistence

● the structure of horror can be called “disappointment”

○ “disappointment” refers both to a “letting down” and to “removal from a (self-)appointed
position”
science fiction, structure, and history
● science fiction began to replace the historical novel in the late 19th century as
the literature of difference
○ shifted difference from the past to the future

● previously, the historical novel had shifted difference to a temporal register

(the past is fundamentally different than the present) and away from a spatial
register
○ this spatial register, and the sort of differences it involves (i.e. “out there” is different than “in
here) was the province of the utopia
science fiction, structure, and history
● the subtitle of The Dispossessed is “An Ambiguous Utopia”
science fiction, structure, and history
● the subtitle of The Dispossessed is “An Ambiguous Utopia”
● setting aside the ambiguity:
○ “utopia” can mean “good place” or “no place”
science fiction, structure, and history
● the subtitle of The Dispossessed is “An Ambiguous Utopia”
● setting aside the ambiguity:
○ “utopia” can mean “good place” or “no place”

○ “-topia” is John Clute’s original term for the final stage of sf

science fiction, structure, and history
● the subtitle of The Dispossessed is “An Ambiguous Utopia”setting aside the
ambiguity:
○ “utopia” can mean “good place” or “no place”

○ “-topia” is John Clute’s original term for the final stage of sf

○ “utopia” is also a genre

science fiction, structure, and history
● the subtitle of The Dispossessed is “An Ambiguous Utopia”setting aside the
ambiguity:
○ “utopia” can mean “good place” or “no place”

○ “-topia” is John Clute’s original term for the final stage of sf

○ “utopia” is also a genre

○ the question of dystopia/utopia (the type of place) is fundamentally a question of interiority and
exteriority, which is to say that it’s a question of walls and borders
walls, communication, and aliens
● what did you have to say in your writing today?
● see page 17
walls, communication, and aliens
● the human as alien
● what is “communication”?
● what does communication have to do with walls and with the question of
utopia?
walls, communication, and aliens
● see opening of novel