Studies in Fiction (313-0-20)
Topic
Science Fiction's Radical Roots
Instructors
Samantha Jo Botz
Meeting Info
University Hall 218: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
This class will investigate the roots of the modern science fiction novel as it emerged in the post-war period of the 20th century through the lens of three major, prolific writers of the period: Samuel R. Delaney, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Octavia E. Butler. These three writers have only recently begun to be recognized for making vital contributions not only to science fiction—historically disparaged as a popular, pulpy genre—but literature more broadly. Science fiction is conventionally viewed as an overwhelmingly white, male-dominated genre, but Le Guin, Butler, and Delaney prove the contrary: variously female, Black, and queer, each of these writers proved formative to the genre's development in their fearless explorations of race, gender, sexuality, and ability during the 1960's and 70's. We will read major works across each writer's oeuvre to analyze their particular contributions to how we define science fiction as a narrative category. What does it mean to consider genre fiction as less artistically sophisticated, less serious than literary fiction, when sci-fi has always been invested in reimagining the stories we tell about ourselves? Butler, Le Guin, and Delaney each interrogate traditional ideas of narrative conflict and form, in addition to the ways we might imagine our collective future by unflinchingly facing our present moment. What space did science fiction afford these writers to reimagine erotics, environmental thought, utopian politics, and social care? We will approach these questions by considering the depiction of science in these novels, and how these posited technologies intersect with experiments in race, gender, and sexuality, keeping in mind the genre's coexistence with civil rights and feminist movements across the country.
Class Materials (Required)
Possible Texts: Octavia E. Butler, Patternmaster (1976), Mind of my Mind (1977), Dawn (1987); Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), The Lathe of Heaven (1971), The Dispossessed (1974), Samuel R. Delaney, Babel-17 (1966), Nova (1968), Trouble on Triton (1976), in addition to short stories and essays by all three writers.
Class Attributes
Literature & Fine Arts Distro Area