Course Syllabus
1) McCourt, ENGL 348A, AUT24 (pdf)
a) Full Syllabus (excerpts included below)
b) Schedule of Readings (included below)
a) English 348 A
Studies in Popular Culture
Drugs, Cults, and Dystopia
Required Texts (the specific editions of these three novels are available at the UW bookstore):
Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly (1977)
Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower (1993)
Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents (1998)
Additional required readings are available in electronic format, as pdf files on the Canvas site, or are available online, as noted in the schedule of readings on the course calendar (on Canvas under "files/announcements").
The filmic adaptation of A Scanner Darkly (2006) will be screened in class and excerpts from the graphic novel adaptation of Parable (at least the first from 2020 - the second coming in 2025) will be shown in class in order to engage using a different version/adaptation with its own set of media-specific affordances and limitations.
Course Learning Objectives:
To become familiar with the genre of science fiction/speculative fantasy and understand its history
To understand the theory of “cognition” and “estrangement” as it relates to science fiction as genre
To identify/analyze a text for its use of literary devices, generic features, and rhetorical techniques
To further develop skills like close-reading, class discussion, literary interpretation, formal writing, literary criticism, genre theory, and academic argumentation
To find meaningful ways to connect the world-building of the readings/narratives to the real world
To engage with popular culture, media specificity, and non-literary adaptation
To view reading and writing as a continuous process which is an extension of the thinking process
Course Description:
In this course, we will study science fiction (sf) novels that use elements of the fantastic in order to convey and dramatize psychological (as opposed to primarily realist/sociological) conditions in the postmodern period (in this course, this designates post-1945 but we’ll focus our analysis on post-1965 literary and cultural “texts”). The novels are deeply interested in the inner lives of their characters and the ways in which the practice of everyday life in the secular, modern world has failed to live up to the human need for meaning. The “new wave” of sf is a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s that favored the aesthetic aspects of literary prose and sought to make the genre more literary and psychological. The selected novels take place in near-future setting with fantastic or estranging aspects that are more inward-facing or psychological (as opposed to simply outward-facing or technological). We will look at how exactly the books accomplish this generic feat through their weaving of biblical texts, modern history, social trends, scientific sources, and aesthetic form into a complex but still accessible narrative written in a genre of popular writing (sf). The novels fictionalize and extrapolate on certain historical trends/social movements found in popular forms of countercultural practice, i.e. the drug culture(s) of the 1960s and 1970s are a source “text” for the writing of Dick’s A Scanner Darkly just as the cult culture(s) from the second wave of New Religious Movements (NRMs) are for Butler’s Parable of the Sower/Parable of the Talents.
b) Schedule of Readings/Assignments (also found at the bottom of the above linked full-text of the syllabus):
Readings listed after the date are meant to be completed by that class period as that’s when we will be discussing them. Weekly writing journals (10 total) should be submitted on the readings for that week unless it is a workshop week in which case they should be on the previously read texts/ideas being reworked for the two graded papers.
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Week 1.
September 26: Introduction, Syllabus
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Week 2.
October 1: Literary Terms, Genre Handout, Historical Framework, and Critical Practice - (no assigned reading)
October 3: “Cognition & Estrangement” (Suvin); “My Definition of SF” (Dick) - (canvas, “files/announcements”)
- Weekly journal (1/10)
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Week 3.
October 8: A Scanner Darkly, (ch. 1-5, pp. 1-87)
October 10: A Scanner Darkly, (ch. 6-8, pp. 88-157)
- Weekly journal (2/10)
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Week 4.
October 15: A Scanner Darkly, (ch. 9-12, pp. 158-216)
October 17: A Scanner Darkly, (ch. 13-17, pp. 217-285)
- Weekly journal (3/10)
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Week 5.
October 22: Screen Adaptation (film) in class - dir. Richard Linklater, A Scanner Darkly (2006)
October 24: Workshop
- Weekly Journal (4/10)
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Midterm Essays Due: Friday, October 25th (by midnight)
Week 6.
October 29: Parable of the Sower, (ch. 1-8, pp. 3-93)
October 31: Parable of the Sower, (ch. 9-16, pp. 94-195)
- Weekly journal (5/10)
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Week 7.
November 5: Parable of the Sower, (ch. 17-23, pp. 196-293)
November 7: Parable of the Sower, (ch. 24-25, pp. 294-329)
- Weekly journal (6/10)
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Week 8.
November 12: Parable of the Talents, (prologue, ch. 1-6, pp. 1-3, 4-105)
November 14: Parable of the Talents, (ch. 7-11, pp. 106-202)
- Weekly journal (7/10)
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Week 9.
November 19: Parable of the Talents, (ch. 12-18, pp. 203-322)
November 21: Parable of the Talents, (ch. 19-21, epilogue, pp. 323-406)
- Weekly journal (8/10)
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Week 10.
November 26: Parable of the Sower/Talents, (no new readings: recap, synthesis, trickster)
November 28: No Class, Thanksgiving
- Weekly journal (9/10)
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Week 11.
December 3: Workshop
December 5: Workshop
- Weekly journal (10/10)
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Final Essays Due: Tuesday, December 10th (by midnight)
Last Day of Instruction: December 6th
Finals Week: December 7th-14th
Course Summary:
| Date | Details | Due |
|---|---|---|