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.
Category: Science Fiction
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Science Fiction, LMC 3214: Pulp SF, Gernsback, CL Moore, and HP Lovecraft
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).
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Science Fiction, LMC 3214: Proto-SF, Voyages Extraordinaires, and Scientific Romances
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.”
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Custom Light-Up Display Stand for LEGO Star Wars Midi-Scale Millennium Falcon 7778 with Han Solo and Chewbacca from 7190
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon building a custom display stand for the “midi-scale” Lego Star Wars Millennium Falcon 7778. I used white bricks and plates to build an empty box for its base. On its front, I used clear round pieces for filler and translucent blue pieces for the letters. I planned out the letters on an index card that I drew a grid pattern on. If you count the columns, you can see that I was left with an extra, unused column. Y suggested setting the bottom line of text off by one column to spread this spare column between both lines of text, which I think works very well. In the back of the base, I installed a light brick to illuminate the Star Wars text on the front. On top of the base, I build a stand for the Falcon using Technic bricks. It took some experimentation with different elements to get the angle that I wanted. On top of the stand, I used a 4×4 rotating assemblage to give the Falcon a more dramatic pose. In order to keep it at the rotation angle that I choose, I used a Technics rod assembly attached with a 2×2 rotating assemblage to meet it to the Falcon and hold it in place. I added the Han Solo and Chewbacca minifigures from the original Lego Star Wars Millennium Falcon 7190 set to complete the project.
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Science Fiction, LMC 3214: Concluding Frankenstein and Learning Exercise on the Sublime and Beautiful
Frames and science saturation. In today’s class, we finished discussing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein by discussing Volumes II and III and coving some major themes.
To begin class, I wanted to have all of the students think about the sublime and the beautiful to better understand Mary Shelley’s engagement of those ideas in the settings and characterization in Frankenstein. First, I asked all of the students to quickly read summaries of the first three sections of Immanuel Kant’s Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime on Wikipedia here. I also briefly described these sections to provide a rough sketch of what they would be reading. Then, I split the class into two halves: one half would find a picture or photo that represented Kant’s ideas of beauty and one half would find a picture or photo that represented Kant’s ideas of the sublime. Once they found an appropriate image, they would email a link to me with the subject “beauty” or “sublime.” This took about 10 minutes. Finally, I showed these images in front of the class and I invited the students to tell us why they choose it and then as a class we discussed how these worked or not as examples. I also found some examples that represented beauty and sublimity (I choose something technological to introduce a curveball to our discussion). We also looked at some of my photos of Mont Blanc and Chamonix from 2011.
Some of the themes that we covered during the discussion of the last half of the novel included:
- Epistolary and narrative frames
- Issues of voice, authenticity, and mutual understanding/misunderstanding.
- Rhetoric and empathy.
- Science saturated novel
- Victor, the Creature, and Walton are all scientists of a kind.
- Victor chooses rationality/science cover irrationality/alchemy, his research leads to new discoveries, his research is reproducible. He learns the scientific method, applies it to a new hypothesis (creating life/reanimating tissues), and discovers new knowledge/techniques with real results (albeit without considering his responsibility to his creation).
- The Creature uses rationality to figure things out and learn. He uses observations to learn language, which in turn allows him to learn about social and global relationships. His observations of the De Lacey family is almost like a sociological lab report. He uses deductive and inductive reasoning.
- Walton is on a “voyage of discovery.” Search for knowledge (source of Earth’s magnetic field and geography) and acquisition of fame/wealth from discovering a passage to the Americas through the North Pole.
- A Critique of the Age of Enlightenment
- knowledge from science and rationality can have positive and negative effects on society (Victor waffles on this point in his thinking and conversations with Walton).
- Connected this to the horrors of the 20th Century: World War II > Germany (weapons and genocide) and the United States (the atomic bomb)
- Power of the novel from its ambiguities and tone (tension between positions)
- Influence of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin
- Different interpretations of doppelgangers in the novel and issues of surface/appearance and psychology/inner self.
- Issues of community, social responsibility, and isolation.
I am fortunate to work with this dedicated group of students. They have raised exciting points and asked daring questions. If the first week is any indication of the following four, we will share many more interesting discussions on SF. Next week we will discuss Influences of SF, Voyages Extraordinaires, Scientific Romances, and the Pulps.
- Epistolary and narrative frames
