Required Texts:
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury * Please order or purchase your books all at once, at the very beginning of the semester. Bring the respective book we are reading to class every session that reading is due, even if you think we might not use them in the session. Please note that Doomsday Book is not available in the WC bookstore, so you will need to purchase online or at another bookseller. In addition, we are no longer reading The Forever War, so please return that book.
Again, please note: no excuses are ever accepted for not doing your reading (barring extreme professionally documented illness with a doctor's note) or for not having your books in class. If you have a financial challenge in obtaining the books, please meet with me to chat about your options no later than Wednesday the 3rd of February.
Course Description:
“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin
“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin
"I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining."--Octavia Butler
Surveillance, time travel, dystopias—oh my! What can we learn about the human condition by studying the parallel worlds and bodies of science fiction’s greatest contemporary literary works? A lot! In this class we will examine race and gender dynamics, environmental issues, global politics, and questions of technology, genetics, and ethics via the novels of Octavia Butler, Suzanne Collins, Connie Willis, and others, as well as the 2015 Jennifer Phang film Advantageous, the Netflix series Black Mirror, and more. We will ground each text in the social and political contexts from which they came, examining each dystopian world as a telling mirror of our own fears and hopes for our past, present, and future.
This class will serve as an introduction to the aesthetics and critical reading of science fiction. The primary goal of this course is to help you become a better reader of literature, with an enhanced ability to analyze, discuss, and write about literary texts. By the end of the course, you will have garnered new skills and intensified old ones to help you appreciate the joy and complexity of literature, and the gifts only it can offer you. You also might become a little more "alien"--in a good way!
For your final project in this class, you will utilize the Digital Humanities lab in order to create your own science fiction project.
This course satisfies the Liberal Education requirement COM 2. INTD 100 is a pre-requisite. It is assumed that you have a basic working knowledge of grammar, paper formatting, and MLA style.
Departmental Learning Objectives for this Course:
1) Learn about major authors
2) Interpret literature in broader disciplinary contexts
3) Analyze the formal, linguistic and aesthetic aspects of a text in essays, examinations and other assignments
4) Distinguish a variety of important critical theories including those used in your own writing
5) Develop critical thinking skills through thesis-based composition;
6) Synthesize information and interpretations through research or textual analysis
7) Use information, inferences and interpretations developed through research to defend a thesis of your own creation
Course Requirements:
For this class you will write two papers, one paper revision, and do one final project and presentation (which also contains a paper element). The papers will be approx. 4-5 pages in length, and you will receive separate instructions for all of them. One will be an in-class essay. You will also have short exercises and quizzes throughout the semester.
All papers must be typed and carefully proofread. Papers should always have a title and a Works Cited page. If you have grammatical or stylistic questions consult reference guides such as A Writer’s Reference or the OWL @ Purdue website. If you are using a computer lab, always be sure to give yourself extra time, and to save your material frequently.
Plagiarism—claiming ownership of ideas and language that are not your own—is simply unacceptable.
Plagiarized papers will result in a failing grade for the course, and a report will be submitted to the office of Student Life.
Participation and Attendance:
There will be moments when I will lecture. Aside from these times, class should operate like a seminar. This means that it is imperative that you read the material--on time--and are prepared to verbally discuss this material in class. Again, you should always have your book with you.
Always be prepared, and always come to class on time. Two tardies count as an absence. More than three absences will result in a lower grade; more than six will result in a failing grade.
Any absences at all can only mar your performance in the class. Inform me in advance regarding serious operations or other significant reasons for being excused, and please note that without any exception they will only be excused with written verifiable proof.
Technology and Classroom Behavior Etiquette:
No laptops or iPads unless I approve them for notetaking (ask first). I don’t want to see your phones out—if I do, I will take them away, no exceptions. If it seems you are not paying attention or you are talking while I am talking, you may be asked to leave the classroom and take an absence for the day. If you show up without having done your reading or work, you may also receive an absence for the day.
Class is only 50 minutes long, so you should have no reason to get up and leave the room unless it’s an absolute emergency. That also means that you should not have more than one or two emergencies in an entire semester, as emergencies by their very nature are rare.
Please use the facilities before class—it’s your job to be in class on time as you would for a job. Please note that arriving right on time, setting your things on the table or desk and then leaving to use the restroom or get a drink of water does not mean that you are on time to class. Being on time means being in your seat, ready and prepared to go, right when class begins.
Abiding by these policies will allow us a pleasant, productive class session. Thank you for your cooperation!
Class Blog:
I will communicate with you regularly via this class blog, so check it for updates here every day. You can sign up to subscribe to the blog to get automatic updates if you like.
I will also post any updates to the Course Schedule here. You don’t need to print the syllabus out, unless you want to.
Papers and Workshop Etiquette:
All papers will be submitted electronically, at the very beginning of class. For every half hour your paper is late, your grade is lowered one whole letter score. Do not turn in late papers. If you are going to be absent for some reason on the day your paper is due, please turn it in early.
If a true emergency occurs that prevents you from turning in your work, please note that I will only accept your late paper provided that both of the following conditions are met:
1) You have physical proof that I can verify of your emergency (accident reports from the police, doctor's notes, etc.).
2) You tell me immediately via email what is going on, on the day the paper is due.
If either of these conditions is incomplete, I will not accept your late paper. No exceptions.
You will turn in hard copies of your rough drafts for workshop. You may NOT bring your laptops instead of hard copies for workshop. If you fail to bring in hard copies of your papers for workshop, you will be asked to leave and take an absence for the day.
Please note as well that if you are more than five minutes late to class on a workshop day, you will be asked to leave and take an absence for the day. Pairs will have already been formed at that point, and I will not interrupt others to accommodate your lateness.
Email and Facebook:
I do not check the Whittier email address as frequently as I check my gmail, so please contact me via katedurbinteacher@gmail.com. I do check my gmail email address several times a day, and will get back to you asap. I recommend this over any other means of contacting me. Please do not send me FB messages or Instagram messages with class related requests (although you are welcome to friend me if you like!).
Grade Breakdown:
Paper 1: 20%
Paper 2: (in-class) 15%
Paper Revision: 20%
Project, Presentation & Paper: 30%
Attendance, participation, reading and brief assignments: 25%*
*Please note that because reading, attendance and participation are worth 25% of your grade, it is next to impossible to pass this course without regularly reading, attending, and sharing your thoughts.
Students with Disabilities:
Students desiring accommodations on the basis of physical, learning or psychological disability for this class are to contact Disability Services. Disability Services is located in the Library building, first floor, room G003 and can be reached by calling extension 4825.
