Laurie Marks 
laurie.marks@umb.edu
Office: Wheatley 6-106
617-287-6742 
Office hours: MWF 10-11 and 12-1

Required Texts (in order of publication—not the order we’ll read them)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Pocket), 1818.
Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Signet), 1870. 
C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Scribner), 1938.
Olaf Stapledon, Sirius (Dover), 1944. 
Alfred Bester, The Stars my Destination (Vintage), 1957.
Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness (Ace), 1969.
Octavia Butler, Kindred (Beacon), 1969. 
William Gibson, Neuromancer (Ace) 1984.
Joan Slonczewski, A Door Into Ocean (St. Martin’s), 1986.
China Mieville, Un Lun Dun (Del Rey) 2007.
Also, plan to rent (or view in Healey Library) “Blade Runner” (1982) and “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (1954—not the later versions).

Course Requirements and Grades
On the due date of a reading assignment, you need to have completely read the assignment.  Since most of the readings are novels, some of significant length, plan ahead.  To keep up with the coursework, you need to read 300-500 pages a week.
The quizzes are given in the first 10-15 minutes of class, and if you miss class or arrive too late to do the quiz, you will receive an F.  Quizzes cannot be made up.  The two lowest grades will be dropped, and the average of the remaining four is worth 20% of the course grade.
The papers are due on the given due date, but may be submitted one class meeting late with no penalty.  The paper assignments will be posted to the website ten days before the due date.   The first paper is worth 20% of the course grade, and the second paper is worth 25% of the course grade. 
The final exam will be a comprehensive essay exam worth 35% of the course grade.  
I will give you an individual progress report at mid-semester, but you can request one any time. 
Attendance
You may be absent six times with no penalty, and you don’t need to explain or get excuses for those absences.  If you’re absent seven times, you will fail the course. 

Academic Honesty
I enforce a strict standard of academic honesty.  If you plagiarize or engage in other kinds of cheating, you will fail the class.  Plagiarism, as outlined in the Code of Student Conduct (please review the code at http://www.umb.edu/students/student_rights/code_conduct.html), includes:
1.	Submitting as one’s own an author’s published or unpublished work (e.g. material from a journal, Internet site, newspaper, encyclopedia), in whole, in part, or in paraphrase, without fully and properly crediting the author. 
2.	Submitting as one’s own work or materials obtained from another student, individual, or agency without full and proper attribution. 
3.	Submitting as one’s own work material that has been produced through unacknowledged or unauthorized collaboration with others. 

Materials on Reserve in Healey Library (3rd floor):
1. C. S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (Harcourt Brace, 1975)
2. Robert Scholes and Eric Rabkin, Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision (Oxford University Press, 1977)
3. Mark Rose, Alien Encounters: Anatomy of Science Fiction (Harvard University Press, 1981)
	
4. Robert Crossley, H. G. Wells (Starmont, 1986)
5. Tom Shippey, ed. Fictional Space (Blackwell, 1990)
6. Robert Crossley, Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future (Syracuse University Press, 1994)
7. Jane Donawerth, ed. Frankenstein’s Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction (Syracuse University Press, 1997)
8. Gwyneth Jones, Deconstructing the Starships:  Science, Fiction and Reality (Liverpool University Press, 1999)
9. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.  (Novel on which “Blade Runner” is based.)
10.  Ridley Scott, director, “Blade Runner” (1982).
11. Richard Fleischer, director, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (1954).
12. Alex Proyas, director, “Dark City” (1998).
13. Stanley Kubric, director, “2001, a Space Odyssey” (1968).

In addition, you may want to consult the extremely useful Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by John Clute and Peter Nicholls, available in the reference room on the 4th floor.  The Healey Library also owns an extensive run of the scholarly journal, Science-Fiction Studies. 
Course Calendar
Date	Due	Activity	
W 9/3			
F 9/5	Shippey, “How to Read…”		
M 9/8 (add-drop ends 9/9)	Chiang, “Story;” Lem, “Seventh;” Otaño, “Gu Ta Gutarrac.”		
W 9/10			
F 9/12	Shelly, Frankenstein	QUIZ #1	
M 9/15			
W 9/17			
F 9/19	Stapledon, Sirius		
M 9/22			
W 9/24			
F 9/26	Murphy, “Wife”; Film: “Blade Runner” 		
M 9/29			
W 10/1			
F 10/3	Verne, 20,000 Leagues	QUIZ #2	
M 10/6	Film: “20,000 Leagues”		
W 10/8			
F 10/10	Lewis, Silent Planet		
M 10/13 (Columbus Day)	NO CLASS		
W 10/15		Paper #1 due	
F 10/17			
M 10/20	Butler, Kindred 	QUIZ #3	
W 10/22 (mid-semester)			
F 10/24			
M 10/27			
W 10/29	Le Guin, Left Hand		
F 10/31			
M 11/3			
W 11/5			
F 11/7	Slonczewski, Door into Ocean 	QUIZ #4	
M 11/10			
W 11/12			
F 11/14			
M 11/17	Bester, Stars my Destination		
W 11/19			
F 11/21			
M 11/24		Paper #2 due	
W 11/26	Gibson, Neuromancer	QUIZ #5	
F 11/28 (Thanksgiving recess)	NO CLASS		
M 12/1			
W 12/3			
F 12/5	Miéville, Un Lun Dun	QUIZ #6	
M 12/8			
W 12/10			
F 12/12 (Last class meeting)
Final Exam TBA			

Reading Assignments
I.	Learning to Read
Readings:  	Shippey, “Learning to Read Science Fiction” (pdf)
Shippey’s analysis of the experience of reading science fiction argues that the dislike for the genre that many express is caused by the cognitive demands science fiction imposes on its readers.  While Shippey doesn’t claim that the presence of novum defines science fiction, he does suggest that it is a distinctive characteristic, and therefore that the resulting “estrangement and cognition” are necessary aspects of the reading experience.
As you read science fiction this semester, please pay attention to your own experiences of estrangement and cognition.  Since we’ll be reading works from times and cultures that are strange to us, we also will need to distinguish between the estrangement caused by historical distance and the estrangement caused by novum. 
Readings: 	Chiang, “The Story of Your Life” (pdf)
Lem, “The Seventh Voyage” (pdf)
Otaño, “Gu Tu Gutarrac” (pdf)

We begin with three stories, by a (Chinese-) American, a Pole, and an Argentinian, all of which rely on the malleability of time as a plot element.  These stories take advantage of contemporary theories of physics that relate to time, but rise out of a tradition that dates at least to The Time Machine (Wells, 1895).
II.	Not Quite Human
Readings:	Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
		Olaf Stapledon, Sirius
		Pat Murphy, “His Vegetable Wife” (pdf)
Film: “Blade Runner” (on Reserve)  Optional reading:  Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (on Reserve)
Other relevant readings: Gibson.
Connections: (Mad) scientists: Shelley, Stapledon, Lewis, Slonczewski, and Mieville.
Alien travelogues: Shelley, Verne, Lewis, Slonczewski, LeGuin, Bester, and Gibson.
It can be argued that the science fiction genre did not exist until it was named and identified, which happened in the early 1930s.  However, it can also be argued that science fictional works were written much earlier, near the beginning of the Industrial and Scientific Revolution, when the nascent significance and implications of science and technology began to be apparent.  Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley at the age of nineteen, is usually identified as the first science fiction novel.  Published in 1818, it has remained continuously in print for almost 200 years.  The concept of artificial life and intelligence was not new even then, but previously it had belonged in the realm of folklore, in stories of inanimate objects animated by supernatural intervention  (c.f, golems, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Golem.html).
III.	Age of Discovery
Readings:  	Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
		C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet
Film: “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” 
Connections:  
Fantastic Journeys: Verne, Lewis, Bester, LeGuin, Gibson, Slonczewski, Mieville
Social commentary: Verne, Lewis, Stapledon, LeGuin, Butler, Slonczewski
Utopias/dystopias: Lewis, Slonczewski

From medieval times to the present, but especially during the age of discovery, people who traveled to distant lands often kept detailed notes and journals, which, in the form of narrative travelogues, were published, to be hungrily read by people who could not themselves take on the expense and dangers of traveling to places that were as alien to them as outer space is to us.  Many works of fiction, such as Gulliver’s Travels, Alice in Wonderland, and The Wizard of Oz are based in the travelogue tradition (a tradition that is alive and well on the Internet to this day).  

Jules Verne, a Frenchman fascinated by science and technology, wrote numerous novels about fantastic journeys made possibly by high-tech vehicles: balloons, a giant artillery shell (in which to journey to the moon), and a submarine.  His work, as well as that of his contemporary, H. G. Wells, who contributed to the science fiction tradition the idea of time travel and space aliens, helped to mark out the territory of science fiction.  For C.S. Lewis, writing 60 years after Verne, the debt to these two pioneers seems evident.

IV.	 Equality and Social Justice: Race and Gender
Readings: 	Ursula K. Le Guin, Left Hand of Darkness
		Octavia Butler, Kindred
		Joan Slonczewski, A Door Into Ocean

Connections: Verne, Shelley, and Stapledon are additional examples.
		Heroic quests: Le Guin, Butler, Gibson, Bester, Mieville.

Several previous traditions shaped the ways that science fiction is employed as social criticism or commentary.  In science fiction, direct fiction is uncommon, though sometimes a character acts as a mouthpiece for the author’s views.  More often, the commentary is more indirect, as with utopian fiction and satire.  In these three novels, the authors provide this critique through novum, plot components, and the interactions between the imagined world and the “real” world.  These three books, all written by American women, reflect the influence of the social unrest and change of the 1960s-1970s, but certainly are about far more than race and gender.  They are richly imagined, and are among the most artistic and thoughtful works (from any genre) of their time.

V.	Punk and Noir Science Fiction
Readings:  Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination
William Gibson, Neuromancer
China Mieville, Un Lun Dun
Optional Film: “Dark City” (Reserve)

Gibson’s novel was quickly identified as the founding work of a science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk.  The gritty, cynical, world-weary sensibility of cyberpunk certainly has its precursors, though Gibson’s invention of cyberspace—an alien, computer-generated world—wouldn’t have been sensible until personal computers and the Internet had been invented.  (Personal computers and the Internet were invented in the late 1970s, but didn’t come into general use until the mid 1980s, after Neuromancer was published.  This novel played a significant role in the popularization of these new technologies, and its date of publication is often included in chronologies related to the development of this technology.)  Just as Gibson’s (1984) novel owes a debt to Bester’s (1957), so also does Mieville’s (2007) novel owe a debt to Gibson’s.  These three novels represent three stages in a tradition—or perhaps in several overlapping traditions—the next stage of which has yet to be written.