Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction: Challenging Genres

Description

Why did Kurt Vonnegut shun being labeled a writer of science fiction (SF)? How did Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin find themselves in a public argument about the nature of SF? This volume explores the broad category of SF as a genre, as one that challenges readers, viewers, teachers, and scholars, and then as one that is often itself challenged (as the authors in the collection do). SF, this volume acknowledges, is an enduring argument. The collected chapters include work from teachers, scholars, artists, and a wide range of SF fans, offering a powerful and unique blend of voices to scholarship about SF as well as examinations of the place for SF in the classroom. Among the chapters, discussions focus on SF within debates for and against SF, the history of SF, the tensions related to SF and other genres, the relationship between SF and science, SF novels, SF short fiction, SF film and visual forms (including TV), SF young adult fiction, SF comic books and graphic novels, and the place of SF in contemporary public discourse. The unifying thread running through the volume, as with the series, is the role of critical literacy and pedagogy, and how SF informs both as essential elements of liberatory and democratic education. Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction: Challenging Genres TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION: Challenging Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction SF, SPECULATIVE FICTION, AND HONORING LITERACY SF AND SPECULATIVE FICTION: “A HARD AND FAST DEFINITION?” CAVEATS, MOTIFS, AND ASSORTED THREADS REFERENCES 1. A CASE FOR SF AND SPECULATIVE FICTION: An Introductory Consideration THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN: KNOWING SF WHEN YOU SEE IT SF AMONG THE GENRES: A BRIEF HISTORY Ancient Roots SF in the 1600s SF in the 1700s SF in the 1800s SF in the Early- to Mid-1900s New Wave SF of the 1960s, 1970s Late Twentieth Century SF Film and TV Recent SF and Beyond Critical Response and Scholarship of SF SELECTED ANNOTATED RESOURCE LIST NOTES REFERENCES 2. SF AND SPECULATIVE NOVELS: Confronting the Science and the Fiction DEFINING SCIENCE FICTION Plausible Science and Technologies The Novum Big Picture: Impact on Society and Humans Nature of Science IN THE CLASSROOM Brahe and Kepler The Canal Controversy The intervening period between Lowell and Mariner 4 The Modern Era and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars CONCLUSION REFERENCES 3. SF NOVELS AND SOCIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTATION: Examining Real World Dynamics through Imaginative Displacement THE SF NOVEL AS SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT EXPERIMENT SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS AND SOCIAL ISSUES Sex and Gender Race and Ethnicity Human Evolution Other Themes Miscellany: Human Relationships PAIRING SF NOVELS WITH SOCIAL RESEARCH MUSINGS ON THE NOVEL’S RELATION TO TEACHING SOCIOLOGY MORE GENERALLY REFERENCES 4. “PEEL[ING] APART LAYERS OF MEANING” IN SF SHORT FICTION: Inviting Students to Extrapolate on the Effects of Change CRITICAL LITERACY IN A CHANGING SOCIETY SF AND CRITICAL THINKING SHORT SF AND CRITICAL THINKING HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF THE SF SHORT STORY WHAT ETHICAL ISSUES SURROUND THE USES AND MISUSES OF TECHNOLOGY? Creators and Creations Death and Destruction HOW IS HUMANITY SHAPED BY POWER STRUCTURES? Science as a Threat and Lure Power as a Threat and Lure HOW COULD THE DEFINITION OF HUMANITY EVOLVE? Evolving/Redefining Humanity Redefining Notions of Self and Society WHY THESE QUESTIONS MATTER REFERENCES 5. READING ALIEN SUNS: Using SF Film to Teach a Political Literacy of Possibility SF FILM AND A NEW MODE OF CRITICAL LITERACY NOETIC SPACE AND THE FUTURE HOMO SACER AND BEHAVIORIST EDUCATION: KUBRICK’S DARK KOAN A HOME IN ANTICIPATORY SPACE? RE-TERRITORIALIZING THE FUTURE REFERENCES 6. SINGULARITY, CYBORGS, DRONES, REPLICANTS AND AVATARS: Coming to Terms with the Digital Self PROGRESS AS A PLEA FOR A TRANSHUMANIST FUTURE TRANSHUMANISM AS A MOVEMENT MASS CULTURE AND NEW MEDIA: THE OPIATE OF DYSTOPIA SINGULARITY AND THE DIGITAL SELF TEACHING TO UNDERSTAND THE SCIENCE IN “SCIENCE FICTION” REFERENCES 7. TROUBLING NOTIONS OF REALITY IN CAPRICA: Examining “Paradoxical States” of Being HOLOBANDS, MEDIA AND CYLONS AVATARS AND BORDER CROSSINGS HYPERREALITY NOTES REFERENCES 8. “I TRY TO REMEMBER WHO I AM AND WHO I AM NOT”: The Subjugation of Nature and Women Represented in The Hunger Games SOCIAL CRITICISM AND YOUNG ADULT DYSTOPIAN FICTION ECOFEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM “IF I CAN FORGET THEY’RE PEOPLE KILLING THEM WILL BE NO DIFFERENT AT ALL” “SOMEHOW IT ALWAYS COMES BACK TO COAL AT SCHOOL”: A PROGRAM OF DEHUMANIZING OTHERS “IF YOU PUT ENOUGH PRESSURE ON COAL IT TURNS TO PEARLS”: REGENDERING KATNISS “I CAN’T SHAKE THE FEELING THAT I’M BEING WATCHED CONSTANTLY”: THE PERILS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN A SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY BEYOND “THE BASTARD STEPSON OF REAL LITERATURE” REFERENCES 9. “IT’S A BIRD … IT’S A PLANE … IT’S … A COMIC BOOK IN THE CLASSROOM?”: Truth: Red, White, and Black as Test Case for Teaching Superhero Comics A SHORT HISTORY OF SUPERHERO COMIC BOOKS TRUTH: RED, WHITE, AND BLACK WHO DOES CAPTAIN AMERICA REPRESENT? FINAL THOUGHTS NOTES REFERENCES 10. THE ENDURING POWER OF SF, SPECULATIVE AND DYSTOPIAN FICTION: Final Thoughts “DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL”: THERE’S A REASON CAPTAIN AMERICA WEARS A MASK CALCULATING THE CORPORATE STATES OF AMERICA: REVISITING VONNEGUT’S PLAYER PIANO EDUCATION IN THE CORPORATE STATES OF AMERICA Democrats and Republicans: Two Sides of the Same Corporate Coin Education in the Corporate States of America WHENCE COME “THE LEFTOVERS”?: SPECULATIVE FICTION AND THE HUMAN CONDITION Our Speculative World, “Off-to-the-Side” LE GUIN’S “THE ONES WHO WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS”: ALLEGORY OF PRIVILEGE DIVERSITY AND THE RISE OF MAJORITY-MINORITY SCHOOLS Confronting Diversity, Equity, and Cultural Assumptions THE EDUCATION GAMES: REFORM AS DOUBLESPEAK “One Need Not Swallow Such Absurdities as This” High-stakes Standardized Tests Common Core State Standards Expertise in Education The Ends-Justify-the-Means Logic SEPARATE, UNEQUAL … AND DISTRACTED X-Men and The Hunger Games: Allegory as Unmasking Separate, Unequal … and Distracted TIME AS CAPITAL: THE RISE OF THE FRANTIC CLASS The Frantic Distraction of Surviving Frantic Students, Frantic Workers: The Rise of the Frantic Class CLONES, ASSEMBLY-LINE CAPITALISM, AND WAGE-SLAVES “Such a World Will Come to Pass” NOTES REFERENCES AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES