The flag of the United States of America is the enduring emblem of our country and what our women and men in the armed forces protect through their service. Memorial Day is set aside to remember and honor those who died in service to our country. It’s origin is in honoring Union soldiers who gave their lives to preserve our country and uphold our constitutional foundation. For those like myself who have not served in the armed forces, we reflect on those who have fallen while in service and honor them through our own humble efforts to protect, preserve, and contribute to our country’s well-being.
The photo above is the Brunswick, Georgia Risley Middle School flag squad (1990-1991). The administration asked me to organize a group of students to raise and lower the US and Georgia flag each school day. On this day, Shannon, Robert, and Darrell joined me to lower and fold the flags. As a Boy Scout, I had participated on Color Guard and flag ceremonies many times. I was glad to support the school with this service and pass on what I had learned about flag protocols and folding to my school friends who were not in Scouts.
I’m very happy to announce the launch of a new open educational resource (OER) that I’ve been working on for awhile!
It’s called Yet Another Science Fiction Textbook (YASFT). It’s over 60,000 words and includes additional resources that can be helpful for readers, students, and instructors.
YASFT is released under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Creative Commons License. It’s freely available to be read as it is. However, if anyone would like to use it in another way, there are licensing terms that must be followed: “This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, for noncommercial purposes only. If others modify or adapt the material, they must license the modified material under identical terms.”
You can find YASFT under the Teaching menu above or directly here.
Its abstract and table of contents are included below.
Abstract
Yet Another Science Fiction Textbook (YASFT) is an open educational resource or OER, meaning it is freely available for anyone to use and learn with. It provides a chronological history of Science Fiction (SF) with an emphasis on literature and film, and it includes other useful resources, such as a glossary of terms, an extensive list of SF definitions, additional resources, a syllabus with hyperlinked readings available online, and video lectures. It tells a story, but not the only story, about SF history. It’s also an experiment in using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to assist with editing a large body of text, in this case over 60,000 words.
Table of Contents
Front Matter What is YASFT? Who made YASFT? Why was YASFT made? Why is it called YASFT? How can YASFT be used? How was YASFT made? Acknowledgements Preface Origins of Science Fiction Early Fantastic Stories Scientific Revolution Age of Enlightenment Romanticism The Gothic Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Science-Saturated Novel Victor Frankenstein’s Hubris Critique of the Age of Enlightenment Tabula Rasa Proto-SF Historical Context Edgar Allan Poe Nathaniel Hawthorne Jules Verne H. G. Wells E. M. Forster Pulp SF Historical Context Overview of Pulp SF Hugo Gernsback E. E. “Doc” Smith C. L. Moore Edgar Rice Burroughs H. P. Lovecraft SF Film Serials of the 1930s and 1940s Buck Rogers Flash Gordon Golden Age SF Historical Context Overview of Golden Age SF John W. Campbell, Jr. Isaac Asimov Ray Bradbury Robert A. Heinlein Frank Herbert Tom Godwin SF Film Through the 1950s Film vs. Literature Early SF Film 1950s SF Film Boom Forbidden Planet New Wave SF Historical Context Overview of New Wave SF J.G. Ballard Harlan Ellison Philip K. Dick Samuel R. Delany Star Trek “The City on the Edge of Forever” Feminist SF Historical Context Beginnings of Feminist SF Definitions of Feminist SF Joanna Russ Marge Piercy Pamela Zoline James Tiptree, Jr. Ursula K. Le Guin Octavia E. Butler Afrofuturism Steven Barnes Tananarive Due Nalo Hopkinson Nnedi Okorafor Cyberpunk Historical Context Coining the Cyberpunk Term Cyberpunk Characteristics William Gibson Sprawl Trilogy and Stories Hermes 2000 and Floppy Disk eBooks The X-Files, “Kill Switch” Bruce Sterling Pat Cadigan Contemporary Science Fiction Historical Context Ted Chiang N. K. Jemisin Cory Doctorow Charlie Jane Anders Martha Wells Mary Robinette Kowal Ken Liu R. F. Kuang SF Film from 1960 Onward 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s Global Perspective: Taiwanese SF Brief Taiwanese History Taiwanese SF Overview Taiwanese Fandom Cultural Comparisons Issues with Translation How to Keep Up With Science Fiction Appendices Appendix 1: Glossary of Science Fiction Terms Appendix 2: Chronological List of SF Definitions of Science Fiction with MLA Citations Appendix 3: Further Reading Textbooks Readers Teaching Online Research Appendix 4: Sample Syllabus with Hyperlinked Readings Appendix 5: Lecture Videos Appendix 6: Version History
As I wrote about yesterday, I met up with my former City Tech colleague Alan Lovegreen in March 2019 on the west side of Manhattan to visit the Intrepid Museum and USS Growler submarine. My last post showed pictures of from the Intrepid. Today’s post is all about the Growler.
The claustrophobic interior of the Growler submarine was thrilling to walk through. Everything seemed to have its specific purpose and was made to go where it fit into the overall interior puzzle space. It’s hard to imagine the design work that went into building this (or the aircraft carrier next door for that matter) before computer aided design.
Also, I could more easily visualize the similarity between voyaging under water in a submarine and voyaging in outer space in a spacecraft. Both create a living environment for human beings in otherwise inhospitable environments. The former keeps pressure out and the latter keeps pressure in. Catastrophe is possible in a number of ways–some slow and others sudden.
The Growler is also a communication technology museum–loud speakers, telephones, exterior microphones, recording and processing devices, radios, sonar, mimeograph machine, typewriter, gauges, and indicators.
When I’m willing to jump through the hoops of a CUNY class field trip, I imagine a multifaceted technologies of representation and technical communication gold mine at the Intrepid Museum and USS Growler submarine.
There are now 434 bibliographic entries–an addition of 52 new entries. The online resource list at the bottom of the page is now up to 56 links–an increase of only one.
Most of the new bibliographic entries are in the pedagogy, generative text, background, and textbook sections, but there are some interesting titles that I added to the other AI application sections.
Following the explosion of new titles on artificial intelligence earlier this year, the rate of new publications have slowed. I suspect that some titles were rushed out to take advantage of the hype and now new titles are being released at normal publication rates. But, I also suspect that the pipeline is in the process of rebuilding, perhaps with even more titles than were in the first wave.
As I’ve written before, the list isn’t exhaustive. I include titles that I find interesting through my research and study of generative AI. Nevertheless, I hope that it might be useful to folks who find it one way or another.
In 2010, Y and I went on a day trip to Pittsburgh to look around before going to Ikea to pick up some new furniture. My favorite place in Pittsburgh is the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh, which I made use of when I lived there, so we made that one stop on our itinerary.
From a distance, it is an easy to see landmark for getting around the University of Pittsburgh campus.
Standing at its entrance, the building’s magnitude is unavoidable. And, to think that this gigantic building–the second tallest educational building in the world–is dedicated to learning.
It’s interior first floor study space is equally impressive. This cavernous space lends itself to individual and collaborative work.
From an upper floor, you can look east to see Carnegie Mellon University.
Before leaving, Y took a photo of me sitting in one of the big chairs in the study area on the first floor of the Cathedral of Learning.
I think that all universities should invest in basic studying and learning spaces where students can work individually and together. It can be something as architecturally impressive as the Cathedral of Learning, or it could be something designed around sustainability and efficiencies such as Georgia Tech’s Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons. Whatever form it takes, it should center on students and their needs whether they live on campus or commute. Essentially, students need space to study, work, and collaborate outside of the classroom.
