Dr. Jason W. Ellis' Blog on Science Fiction, Research, Pedagogy, Computers, and LEGO
During today’s LMC 3214 Science Fiction class, I continued my lecture on the importance of the Biology of Mind to Frankenstein specifically and Science Fiction generally. In the last lecture, I ended on a discussion of the empiricist vs. rationalist debates. Then, I turned to the questions, “How and why do we enjoy literature?” I …
Continue reading “Science Fiction, LMC 3214, Summer 2014: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Day 2 of 2)”
Today, my LMC 3214 students and I shifted our attention away from contemporary science fiction as represented by Ted Chiang’s “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” towards the beginning of the genre. My goal was to shift my students’ thinking about Frankenstein away from the popular conception (photo above) to the novel’s original depiction …
Continue reading “Science Fiction, LMC 3214, Summer 2014: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Day 1 of 2)”
This is the second post in a series that I call, “Recovered Writing.” I am going through my personal archive of undergraduate and graduate school writing, recovering those essays I consider interesting but that I am unlikely to revise for traditional publication, and posting those essays as-is on my blog in the hope of engaging …
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, …
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