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  • Science Fiction, LMC3214: Golden Age, Part 2 and SF Film Lecture

    In today’s class, I covered large swaths of background material on Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, and Tom Godwin. Then, I gave the class a rough sketch of the development of SF film through the SF-film boom of the 1950s as preparation for tomorrow’s viewing of Forbidden Planet. After lecture, we discussed the readings from Monday and Tuesday: Asimov’s “Reason,” Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains,” Heinlein’s “All You Zombies–,” and Godwin’s “The Cold Equations.”

    I was glad to hear that Godwin’s story connected emotionally with some students despite it being “hard SF.” There were also a number of students  who preferred “All You Zombies–” and were already familiar with time travel narratives, which supported my lecture argument about Heinlein’s reliance on reader’s experience with the SF mega-text. One student on Bradbury’s story said, “This was the first story that made me feel sorry for a house.” After class, I had a great conversation with two students about Cold War anxieties and the shifting experiences of SF in film and television via new media.

  • Science Fiction, LMC 3214: Exam 1 and Lecture on Golden Age SF Part 1

    Today, my students bravely wielded their pens and Blue Books to endure their first exam in our Science Fiction class. The exam covered Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein through the early SF film serials. The exam had twenty short and long answer questions. A few students completed the exam in the allotted 60 minutes, but I gave the rest of the class an additional 15 minutes to complete the test. I made it very clear that I could not give credit to illegible responses, so I think that the writing component slowed some students down. I will take this into consideration as I plan the second exam while making my lecture notes for the upcoming two weeks of class.

    After the exam, I delivered the first part of my lecture on Golden Age SF. I covered a rough sketch of the Golden Age, John W. Campbell, Jr., and Isaac Asimov. In tomorrow’s class, I will lecture on Robert A. Heinlein, Tom Godwin, Ray Bradbury, and the maturation of SF film. We will discuss the readings for Monday and Tuesday, too: Asimov’s “Reason,” Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains,” Heinlein’s “All You Zombies–,” and Godwin’s “The Cold Equations.”

  • Science Fiction, LMC3214: Early SF Film Serials, Remediation and Media Translation, Flash Gordon, and Exam Prep

    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.

  • 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).

  • 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.”