Module Description

The module examines the appeal of s/f as a serious fictional engagement with our consensual sense of reality. It addresses fantasy, speculative fiction, and science fiction as forms of narrative engaged in “world-building” and “word-shaping,” studying such fictional constructs as forms of sociological and anthropological knowledge. It also examines the relation between the “strange” and the “real” in terms of the shared and the antithetical elements that relate s/f to realism.

Module Aims

The module addresses such questions as: What is the nature of s/f, where the acronym can concurrently access the speculative, the fantastic, the scientific, and the fictive?  How does the notion of s/f unite the drives underlying allegory, fable, fairy tale, myth, legend, parable, romance, supernatural or horror fiction, magic realism, and “hard” science fiction? In what sense is the sf genre a way of knowing and making sense of the world we live in? What are the reasons for, and the arguments against, the common misconception that s/f is a form of escapism? What is the relevance of s/f in the world of today, and in relation to what the world might become in the future? How does s/f relate to religion, history, and science?

Primary Texts

Assignments & Continuous assessment

•  Class Participation: 5%
• Class presentation: 5%
• One Essay (home assignment): 10%
• One mid-term class test : 20%
• Final Examination: 60% (non-Open Book)

Midterm Test Format

• Midterm Test Format (Max. marks: 20. Allotted time: 50 mins)
   Part 1: Short Answers [max. marks: 10; time: 25 mins; 5-10 lines per question]
   1.1      
  1.2      
  1.3      
  1.4      
  1.5      
   
  Part 2:  Close reading [Max. marks: 10; time: 25 mins; attempt either 2.1 or 2.2]
   
  Comment on details of language, narration, imagery, and other salient features from the quoted passage in relation to the overall significance that you attribute to the relevant novel.
   
  2.1
  OR
  2.2  

LECTURE NOTES

Introductory (RSP)

Braving New Worlds (SA)

Walter Miller (RSP)

Miller/Lem (SA)

SF & The Other (RSP)

SF and Technology (RSP)

Philip K. Dick (RSP)

Orson Scott Card (RSP)

Ursula le Guin (RSP)

Philip Pullman (RSP)

Philip Pullman (SA)

Dan Simmons (SA)

Dan Simmons (RSP)

Suggestions for Presentations and Assignments

  Suggestions for PRESENTATIONS

 Miller

 1 What is the relation between religion and technology in the novel?
 2 How is human history represented in the novel?
 3 Relate the significance of the myths of Prometheus and Faustus to the novel.
 4 Why is the idea of redemption significant to the novel?
 

  Lem

 1  The theme of alien encounter
 2  The issue of intelligence, sentience, consciousness and mind
 3  Lem’s implied attitude to the human will to knowledge
 4  Solaris as a parable 

 Dick

 Card

 1  The relation between xenophobia and the theme of alien encounter
 2  Social elitism in relation to the training of children for special purposes
 3  Technology and the simulation of reality: issues and consequences
 4  The issue of responsibility and guilt in the novel

 le Guin, The Earthsea Quartet

 1    A Wizard of the Earthsea
 1.1  What are the main difficulties that Ged has to overcome before he can defeat the Shadow?
 1.2 What is the price or responsibility required by magic of the magician?
 1.3 What is the significance attached to language and naming in the novel?
 2   The Tombs of Atuan
 2.1 What does Ged save Tenar from? And what does Tenar rescue Ged from?
 2.2 How does the ring of Erreth-Akbe resemble the ring in Tolkien? How does it differ?
 2.3 How does Ged’s quest in this novel differ from the one that precedes it and the one that follows?
 3   The Farthest Shore
 3.1 What is Ged’s role in relation to Arren?
 3.2 In what respects does the Arren-Ged resemble the Tenar-Ged relation from The Tombs of Atuan?
 3.3 What is the role of the Children of the Open Sea in the novel?
 4    Tehanu
 4.1 What role of Goha/Tenar in the novel? How does it relate to her role in The Tombs of Atuan?
 4.2 Why does Ged avoid Arren? How does Arren cope with that?
 4.3 How does the theme of metamorphosis apply to all the principal characters in the novel?
 4.4 What is the significance of the frequent assertion in respect of Ged that the power of the mage is the power of the man?
 4.5 How does the role of dragons change from the first to the last novel of the sequence?

 Pullman, The Golden Compass

 1 In what sense is the novel a children’s fantasy? What is its appeal to a wider audience?
 2 How does the narrative and theme relate to the structure of myth, especially Christian myth?
 3 What is the relation between science, technology and “magic” in the novel?
 4 Comment on the nature eof the settings and milieu’s invented by Pullman for the novel.

Simmons, Ilium

 1 How does Simmons combine Greek myth with a vision of Earth’s future?
 2 What is the significance of the systematic allusions to Shakespeare’s Tempest in the novel?
 3 Discuss the technique of weaving several narratives into a single meta-narrative.
 4 What is the scope for heroic values in the several worlds invented by Simmons?

 Suggestions for ASSIGNMENTS

 Each assignment can compare one text within the syllabus either with another within the syllabus, or, if you wish, to one outside the syllabus:

 1. World-building: how novelists borrow from, as well as depart from, the world as we know it conventionally in their fictions.

 2. Implicit or dramatized attitudes to the role of science and technology in human societies.

 3. Transformations in the roles assigned to men and women in fictional worlds, and their implications for assumptions and attitude about gender in contemporary societies.

 4. The ethical or moral impulse that drives t he narrative in sf.

 5. How the social institutions dramatized in sf narrative relate to current issues and problems in society.

 6. The nature of the speculative or fantasy elements in sf narrative in relation to the role of science in society.

Tutorial Questions

Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz

1.   In Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz the first section, devoted to Brother Francis Gerard, develops an elaborate evocation/representation of the life of a monastic order devoted to preserving —and in his case, embellishing—ancient (scientific) texts. How does this sustain an analogy with monastic life in the middle ages? What might be the purpose or effect of this orientation? Do you detect any irony to Miller’s medievalism? If so, does it affect your sense of how he ends the novel? 

2.   The development of science in the modern period has been accompanied by the reverse parallel of a decline in religious belief. How would you see the connection? How would you factor A Canticle for Leibowitz into this relation? 

3.   What is the Christian element in the vision of history developed by Miller through the course of A Canticle for Leibowitz?  What are the specific ways in which Miller’s fictional world draws upon Roman Catholicism? Upon Latin? 

4.   Does the novel imply that humanity is condemned to repeat its own mistakes? In a repetitive and entropic way? What alternatives or solutions are envisaged by the narrative? 

5.   What is the relation of technology (or the history of man’s mastery of technology) with the larger issue of human history as implied by the novel? 

6.   How does the narrative incorporate the biblical traditions of prophecy and apocalyptic vision into its quasi-historical narrative? 

7.   Note how the link between the role of fire as agent of destruction and purification, or that of light as the medium for vision and the agent of blinding (when in excess) are combined in the novel. Do you see the narrative as condemnatory of the Promethean/Luciferian elements symbolized as light and fire? 

8.   What is the role of human agency in the patterns of history developed as the narrative in A Canticle for Leibowitz? 

9.   Is the redemptive wish expressed in the narrative a function of a resigned acceptance of man’s fallen nature? What is the role of the human in divine redemption? 

10. In what sense does Miller’s novel make categories and distinctions such as Science fiction and fantasy irrelevant or incidental to its relevance, appeal and impact?

__________________________________________________________________________

Lem, Solaris

 1. How does Solaris the planetary body represent a challenge to the human?

 2. How does Lem develop his argument about the human will-to-knowledge as anthropocentric?

 3. How does Lem factor human guilt into his plot?

 4. We meet several Rheas in the novel. What are the implications for Identity and Consciousness of this set of entities?

 5. In what sense is Solaris like a God? and in what sense is it like a child?

 6. How does the novel exhibit Lem's Freudianism?

 7. Compare the novel with the interpretation implied in Tarkovsky's film.

 8. Would you regard the novel as pessimistic or optimistic? or neither? why?

 9. How does the will-to-knowledge that characterizes mankind in the novel exhibit traits that we might link to the will--to-knowledge in the other texts we have read for this module?

 10. Compare the novel with Ender's Game and its treatment of the Alien Encounter.

__________________________________________________________________________

Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

 1. Comment on the role played by the Penfield mood organ and the Empathy box in the novel. Do you detect any elements of irony or satire in their treatment? Evidence, if any?

 2. Why do pets matter in a world almost devoid of animals?

 3. Does sympathy for a fake animal make Isidore less human (as claimed by Milt and Sloat, 67)?

 4. Why have the androids led by Roy Baty come to Earth? Compare the reasons given by Garland (105) with Pris (128).

 5. How does the character Rick treat his own growing awareness of sympathy for androids?

 6. How would you relate Isidore to Rick as parallel motifs that come together in the climax of the novel?

 7. What is the problem faced by the Voigt-Kampff test? And how does Rick resolve it?

 8. How does Luba Luft thwart Rick’s attempts to make her take the test (chp. Nine)?

 9. What is the significance of the opposition between Buster Friendly and Mercer?

 10. What are the consequences of the feeling of empathy shown by (a) Isidore towards Pris and (b) Rick Deckard towards Rachael?

 11. What is the role occupied by Mercerism in Dick’s fictional world?

 12. How does Dick handle the motif of “false memory” in relation to androids?

 13. What is the role played by Mercer in relation to Isidore?

 14. What is the significance of the hallucinatory episodes after Rick has retired all the androids?

 15. What is the significance of Rick’s change of attitude towards Mercer and Mercerism through the course of the novel?

 16. What is the final ethical position Rick arrives at regarding the arguments for “retiring” androids?

 17. What are the roles ascribed to women/female androids through the novel? Do they imply that Dick is sexist?

 18. How would you interpret the title? (“Do androids dream?”, 157)

_______________________________________________________________________

 Card, Ender's Game

 1. How does the novel translate the theme of the Alien Encounter into a dramatization of human xenophobia?

 2. How does the novel depict elitism in the training methods used to prepare soldiers for war through games?

 3. What is the significance of Ender's dream?

 4. How does the novel factor sibling rivalry into its plot?

 5. What is the view of world politics dramatized in the novel?

 6. Do you find the fictionalization of Locke and Demosthenes plausible?

 7. What are the moral implications for how Enders (and the other trainees) are used to operate Dr. Device unknowingly?

 8. How does the end of the novel dramatize the role of guilt and redemption in the narrative of human xenophobia?

 9. In what sense is the novel open-ended? How does it resist closure?

 10. How does the human reaction to the alien in this novel contrast with that dramatized by Lem in Solaris?

Supplementary Reading

REFERENCE WORK 

J. Clute & P. Nicholls (ed), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993) 

CRITICAL WORKS 

James Gunn (ed) The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1988)

J. Clute & P. Nicholls (ed) The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993)

Edward James  Science Fiction in the 20^th Century (1994)

David Pringle The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction (2^nd edn. 1995)

J. Clute & J. Grant (ed) The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997)

Tzvetan Todorov The Fantastic, tr. R. Howard (1970/1975)

Gary K. Wolfe The Known and the Unknown: The Iconography of Science Fiction (1979)

G. E. Slusser &c (ed) Bridges to Fantasy (1982)

Stanislaw Lem Microworlds, ed. Franz Rottensteiner (1985)

B. Aldiss & D.Wingrove Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (1986)

Neil Barron Anatomy of Wonder (3^rd edn., 1987)

John J. Pierce Great Themes of Science Fiction (1987)

Charlotte Spivack Merlin’s Daughters: Contemporary Women Writers of Fantasy (1987)

Carl D. Malmgren Worlds Apart: Narratology of Science Fiction (1991)

Marleen S. Barr Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond (1993)

Jane Donawerth Frankenstein’s Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction (1997) 

JOURNALS

Science-Fiction Studies 

Extrapolation

Foundation: The Review of Science Fiction

LINKS

 ISF Database

 SF Bibliographies

http://sflovers.rutgers.edu/bibliographies/authorlists/

http://access-co2.tamu.edu/hhall/

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/science_fiction/sfresearch.html

http://www.uiowa.edu/~sfs/biblio.htm

 Paul Brians on Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz (provides translations)

The SF Site

 VOS S/F Page

 SF Awards

 Feminist S/F Site

 Solaris: Study Guide

Vitrifax: Site on S. Lem

Stanislaw Lem Official Website

Last Updated 2 December 2005