Category: Science Fiction

I began today’s class by showing them the first episode of the 1936 Flash Gordon film serial episode, “The Planet of Peril.” After having a taste for what I would lecture on in today’s class, I launched into a discussion of pulp of a different kind: SF film serials and SF comic strips. In particular, we talked about Buck Rogers (continuing from last class’ discussion of Gernsback’s Amazing Stories) and Flash Gordon. After lecture, I answered questions about Monday’s upcoming exam that covers Mary Shelley to Poe and Hawthorne to Verne and Wells to Gernsback, Moore, and Lovecraft to Buster Crabbe. Then, we watched two more episodes of Flash Gordon. It was a good class. After the exam on Monday, we will begin talking about Golden Age SF and readings from Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury.

In today’s class, we managed a whirlwind of material!

Before discussing the assigned reading: CL Moore’s “Shambleau” and HP Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space,” I gave a lecture on the origins of pulp fiction, Hugo Gernsback, Amazing Stories, Space Opera, Weird Tales, Weird Fiction, and Cosmic Horror.

Dr. Malavika Shetty from Georgia Tech’s Communication Center also stopped by to let my students know what the Comm Center can do for them as they begin working on their final paper assignments.

Tomorrow, we will talk about SF film serials and watch a few episodes of Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers before reviewing for the first exam at the beginning of class next Monday (no class on Thursday this week because of Independence Day sans Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum).

Today’s class was chocked full of lecture and discussion.

We began by going over the final paper assignment on applying definitions of science fiction to a single work of SF or SFnal that we did not discuss as a class. Since many of the students might not have written literary criticism before, I framed the assignment as an experiment:

• Identify a problem: Choose a work of fiction (book, short story, film, video game, etc.) that: 1) we did not discuss as a class, and 2) has some science fictional aspect—either strongly or weakly. Pose the question: Is this SF (or SF of a particular type)?
• Form a hypothesis about the work being SF or not.
• Choose data for testing your hypothesis: Write about specific themes, examples, and scenes from the work that you choose.
• Test your hypothesis: Using at least two of the attached definitions from the list, argue for and against your hypothesis.
• Draw a conclusion: In your discussion, you should: 1) explain why or why not your example work is SF, and 2) build your own definition of SF and write it in your own words.

I believe that having students get their hands dirty with definitions while trying to formulate their own definition will lead to a deeper understanding of SF discourse.

The bulk of our class was spent on laying foundational lecture material for this week’s material. I introduced them to the cultural forces needed for SF to emerge, early practitioners of proto-SF such as Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jules Verne and his Voyages Extraordinaires, and H.G. Wells and Scientific Romances.

For today’s class, we discussed H.G. Wells’ “The Star” (and I introduced them to Voyager’s Pale Blue Dot photograph) and E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” (which led to an AMAZING discussion about social media and contemporary communication technologies).

Tomorrow, we will discuss the Pulps, Hugo Gernsback, C.L. Moore’s “Shambleau,” and H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space.”