Fall Classes
Happy Friday! May you have a terrific one, and a great weekend, as well.
Happy early birthday wishes to lynn_maudlin, morningapproach, gods_lil_rocker, bouncybabylemur,
splix, divadiane1, fungus_files, markbourne, sunshinedew, and knesinka_e. May all of you enjoy many happy returns of the day!
Before I forget to mention them, here are three books I'm very excited about that either just came out or will be coming out within the next week:
nonfiction:
1. Broadview Press's third edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (lovely appendices!)
2. Annette Kolodny's In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of Discovery (Native America, First Contact, and the Icelandic Sagas!)
fiction:
3. D.B. Jackson's Thieftaker (great author, speculative fiction, and a historical setting in pre-Revolutionary America!)
In other news...
I'm getting my ducks in a row for Fall 2012 classes. Here's what I have lined up to teach...
1. I am thrilled to say that I will be offering internationally, online, for graduate students and auditors, Science Fiction, Part 1: From Its Modern Beginnings Through The Golden Age (1818-1966) for the Mythgard Institute. This is my favorite course to teach (followed by the second half), and I'm really excited about moving it onto a broader stage. I'll be posting more information on this as it's available. For now, here is the reading list.
Required Texts:
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One: 1929-1964: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time, edited by Robert Silverberg
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two A: The Greatest Science Fiction Novellas of All Time, edited by Ben Bova
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley [ISBN: 978-1554811038 (Important to have this version!)]
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (William Butcher translation)
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Natasha Randall translation)
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury [ISBN: 978-0380973835 (Important to have this version!)]
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
The Lecture Breakdown (roughly 2.5 hours per topic)
Proto-Science Fiction, Frankenstein, and the Birth of Modern SF
Ratiocination, Technology, and the Growth of the Genre
Jules Verne and the Scientific Romance
H.G. Wells and the Science Fiction Parable
Utopia, Dystopia, and Lost Worlds
The Pulps, The Editors, and Scientifiction
Early SF, Gender, and the Rise of Fandom
World War II and Its Aftermath
Science Fiction, the Frontier, and the Young Adult Reader
Science Fiction Film and Television
Science Fiction Goes Epic
Robert Heinlein and the Golden Age
The Weekly Reading Schedule
Week 1: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
Week 2: "Rappaccini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844)
"The Diamond Lens" by Fitz-James O'Brien (1858)
"Mellonta Tauta" by Edgar Allan Poe (1859)
Week 3: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (1870)
Week 4: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)
"The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster (1909)
Week 5: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1924)
Week 6: "The Colour Out of Space" by H.P. Lovecraft (1927)
Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell (1938)
"Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov (1941)
Week 7: "First Contact" by Murray Leinster (1945)
Vintage Season by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner (1946)
"That Only A Mother" by Judith Merrill (1948)
Week 8: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950)
Week 9: "The Sentinel" by Arthur C. Clarke (1951)
"The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin (1954)
"Fondly Fahrneheit" by Alfred Bester (1954)
Week 10: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1960)
Week 11: Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
Week 12: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein (1966)
2. I'll also be teaching my 100 Years of Single-Gender Worlds seminar as both an undergraduate and graduate course at Lenoir-Rhyne University.
Here are the assigned readings:
Mizora: A World of Women by Mary E. Bradley Lane (1880-1881)
"Sultana's Dream" by Rokheya Shekhawat Hossein (1905) (online here)
The Disappearance by Philip Wylie (1951)
Consider Her Ways by John Wyndham (1954)
"Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" by James Tiptree, Jr. (1967)
"When It Changed" by Joanna Russ (1972)
London Fields by Caroline Forbes (1985)
Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold (1986)
The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper (1988)
Epitaph Road by David Patneaude (2010)
Each student will do an independent essay on one of the following books and present it to the class:
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915)
Swastika Night by Katharine Burdekin (1937)
Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson (1959)
Spartan Planet by A. Bertram Chandler (1968)
Sex and the High Command by John Boyd (1970)
Wanderground: Stories of the Hill Women by Sally Miller Gearhart (1979)
Retreat! As It Was by Donna J. Young (1979)
Children of the Light by Susan B. Weston (1985)
A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski (1986)
Ammonite by Nicola Griffith (1993)
Glory Season by David Brin (1993)
Califia's Daughters by Leigh Richards (2004)
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (2008)
Nomansland by Lesley Hauge (2010)
"We live on a minute island of known things. Our undiminished wonder at the mystery which surrounds us is what makes us human. In science fiction we can approach that mystery, not in small, everyday symbols, but in bigger ones of space and time." - Damon Knight
Happy early birthday wishes to lynn_maudlin, morningapproach, gods_lil_rocker, bouncybabylemur,
splix, divadiane1, fungus_files, markbourne, sunshinedew, and knesinka_e. May all of you enjoy many happy returns of the day!
Before I forget to mention them, here are three books I'm very excited about that either just came out or will be coming out within the next week:
nonfiction:
1. Broadview Press's third edition of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (lovely appendices!)
2. Annette Kolodny's In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of Discovery (Native America, First Contact, and the Icelandic Sagas!)
fiction:
3. D.B. Jackson's Thieftaker (great author, speculative fiction, and a historical setting in pre-Revolutionary America!)
In other news...
I'm getting my ducks in a row for Fall 2012 classes. Here's what I have lined up to teach...
1. I am thrilled to say that I will be offering internationally, online, for graduate students and auditors, Science Fiction, Part 1: From Its Modern Beginnings Through The Golden Age (1818-1966) for the Mythgard Institute. This is my favorite course to teach (followed by the second half), and I'm really excited about moving it onto a broader stage. I'll be posting more information on this as it's available. For now, here is the reading list.
Required Texts:
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One: 1929-1964: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time, edited by Robert Silverberg
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two A: The Greatest Science Fiction Novellas of All Time, edited by Ben Bova
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley [ISBN: 978-1554811038 (Important to have this version!)]
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (William Butcher translation)
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Natasha Randall translation)
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury [ISBN: 978-0380973835 (Important to have this version!)]
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
The Lecture Breakdown (roughly 2.5 hours per topic)
Proto-Science Fiction, Frankenstein, and the Birth of Modern SF
Ratiocination, Technology, and the Growth of the Genre
Jules Verne and the Scientific Romance
H.G. Wells and the Science Fiction Parable
Utopia, Dystopia, and Lost Worlds
The Pulps, The Editors, and Scientifiction
Early SF, Gender, and the Rise of Fandom
World War II and Its Aftermath
Science Fiction, the Frontier, and the Young Adult Reader
Science Fiction Film and Television
Science Fiction Goes Epic
Robert Heinlein and the Golden Age
The Weekly Reading Schedule
Week 1: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
Week 2: "Rappaccini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844)
"The Diamond Lens" by Fitz-James O'Brien (1858)
"Mellonta Tauta" by Edgar Allan Poe (1859)
Week 3: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (1870)
Week 4: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895)
"The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster (1909)
Week 5: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1924)
Week 6: "The Colour Out of Space" by H.P. Lovecraft (1927)
Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell (1938)
"Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov (1941)
Week 7: "First Contact" by Murray Leinster (1945)
Vintage Season by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner (1946)
"That Only A Mother" by Judith Merrill (1948)
Week 8: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (1950)
Week 9: "The Sentinel" by Arthur C. Clarke (1951)
"The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin (1954)
"Fondly Fahrneheit" by Alfred Bester (1954)
Week 10: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1960)
Week 11: Dune by Frank Herbert (1965)
Week 12: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein (1966)
2. I'll also be teaching my 100 Years of Single-Gender Worlds seminar as both an undergraduate and graduate course at Lenoir-Rhyne University.
Here are the assigned readings:
Mizora: A World of Women by Mary E. Bradley Lane (1880-1881)
"Sultana's Dream" by Rokheya Shekhawat Hossein (1905) (online here)
The Disappearance by Philip Wylie (1951)
Consider Her Ways by John Wyndham (1954)
"Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" by James Tiptree, Jr. (1967)
"When It Changed" by Joanna Russ (1972)
London Fields by Caroline Forbes (1985)
Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold (1986)
The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper (1988)
Epitaph Road by David Patneaude (2010)
Each student will do an independent essay on one of the following books and present it to the class:
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915)
Swastika Night by Katharine Burdekin (1937)
Virgin Planet by Poul Anderson (1959)
Spartan Planet by A. Bertram Chandler (1968)
Sex and the High Command by John Boyd (1970)
Wanderground: Stories of the Hill Women by Sally Miller Gearhart (1979)
Retreat! As It Was by Donna J. Young (1979)
Children of the Light by Susan B. Weston (1985)
A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski (1986)
Ammonite by Nicola Griffith (1993)
Glory Season by David Brin (1993)
Califia's Daughters by Leigh Richards (2004)
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (2008)
Nomansland by Lesley Hauge (2010)
"We live on a minute island of known things. Our undiminished wonder at the mystery which surrounds us is what makes us human. In science fiction we can approach that mystery, not in small, everyday symbols, but in bigger ones of space and time." - Damon Knight