Future History
American Science Fiction as Cultural History

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents

 

Introduction ……………………………………………………………….1

 

Required Readings ………………………………………………………..1

 

Course Objectives………………………………………………………1-2

 

Assignments ………………………………………………………………2

 

Reading Schedule ……………………………………………………..2 - 5

 

Course Policies ………………………………………………………..5 - 6

 

Surviving AS 167.85 …………………………………………….……6 - 9

 

 

 

**This syllabus will be made available in alternative media by request**

 

Introduction

 

This course treats American science fiction both as a popular form of commercial literature and as a field of cultural artifacts that bear traces of the hopes and fears of people faced with radical and irreversible changes in the structure and values of their society.  We will therefore be interested not only in the ways science fiction stories represent in narrative form the cultural common sense of its readers, but also in the ways that they came to be the focus of a readers’ community. Brought together by a love of science fiction, readers established cultural institutions, practices, and values of their own.  In short, the science fiction community was a small-scale culture that replicated some of the features of the larger society and yet differed significantly from it.  Because the relationship between the science fiction community and American society changed over time, we will conduct four case studies in the history of science fiction.  The first case study treats the entrepreneurial origins of science fiction as a well-defined field of commercial publishing and the establishment of large-scale corporate capitalism in the first three decades of the Twentieth century.  Writers and editors such as Hugo Gernsback, David H. Keller, Paul Ernst, and G. Peyton Wertenbaker presented science as a field of individual endeavor, where amateur experiments might discover the meaning of the universe and secure their own fame and fortune.  The second case study examines the attempt of a second generation of science fiction practitioners to redefine science fiction near the beginning of World War II.  Editors and writers such as John W. Campbell, Jr., Robert A. Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov articulated a technocratic vision of the future wherein economic and political power accrued to best and the brightest.  The third case study examines the disruptions of American science fiction and society in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s by people dissatisfied with or excluded from the technocratic vision of the United States.  And the fourth case study treats 1980s science fiction as a debate over the meaning of American history, one with significant ramifications for Reagan-era political struggles.

 

Class meetings will consist of lecture, discussion, and small-group work.

 

Required Readings

 

Brooks Landon’s Science Fiction After 1900 has been ordered at the Marvin Center bookstore.  All other required readings are available in a course reader that can be purchased at Penn Press, 1919 Pennsylvania Ave NW.

 

Course Objectives

 

1.      Through a concentrated case study of Twentieth century American science fiction, to demonstrate that popular culture can serve its audience as a vernacular theory of society and even as a mode of cultural history.

 

2.      To show how popular culture can be the catalyst for the formation of an authentic community, replete with specific institutions, cultural practices, and belief systems.

 

3.      To place American science fiction in an historical context.

 

4.      To reclaim and re-evaluate the often despised pulp origins of American science fiction in light of the worldview of its historic readership.

 

5.      To expand the canon of American science fiction writers deemed worthy of study.

 

6.      To identify the characteristic literary and aesthetic strategies of American science fiction, and to propose societal functions for these strategies.

 

7.      To provide students with a view of Twentieth century social history as seen through the eyes of a particular community, and thereby demonstrate the partial nature of history.

 

Assignments

 

2 short Reader Reports, 1 Midterm Exam, 1 Final Essay weighted as follows:

 

2  Reader Reports  @ 15% each          à 30%

 

+  1 Midterm Exam                  à 35%

 

+  1 Final Essay                                    à 35%

                        ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

100%

 

 

Reading Schedule

 

 

 

Course Policies

Requirements for Written Work

BACKUP: You should make a backup disk or photocopy of all your work.  Error or breakdown—your, mine, or the machine's—can happen.  I will hold you responsible to have copies of your work.  Students should be prepared to submit electronic copies of their work on request.

 

DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP: All written work must be accompanied by a signed page with the following declaration:  “I, [name], declare that I am the sole and original author of this work.   This assignment was completed in compliance with the requirements of the course and The George Washington University’s Code of Academic Integrity.”   

 

FORMATTING:  All essays must be word processed in Times New Roman 12, and double-spaced throughout (except for identifying items).  Set left margins to 1.5 inches and right margins to 1 inch.  Do not justify the right side of the page.  All pages must bear the name of the author, be numbered and stapled together.   Do not include a separate title page, nor submit your essay in a cover of any kind. All papers must be neatly printed with a sufficient saturation level of ink to ensure easy legibility.  Papers with text streaked by dirty print cartridges low on ink will not be accepted.

LATE PAPERS: The final grade of papers not submitted on the due date in class during the scheduled meeting time will be reduced 2/3 of a letter grade for each business day late.  No assignments will be accepted more than three business days late.  No exams will be accepted late.

 

Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism

Any act of academic dishonesty will be treated as a serious offense in this class.  By turning in any assignment, students declare that they are the sole and original authors of their work and are in compliance with The George Washington University’s Code of Academic Integrity.  Additionally they assert that they have properly credited any words and ideas not their own (whether those words and ideas originated in a published source, on the Internet, from a multimedia presentation, or from a fellow student).  Students with questions about how to properly credit the work of others should consult with the instructor. 

Incompletes

 

Incompletes will not be given for frivolous reasons.  If you do not complete an assignment you will receive no credit for that assignment and your course grade will reflect this.  If there are specific attenuating circumstances, please contact me immediately.

 

A Word on Office Hours and E-mail

In a class of 40, it is impossible for me to give close attention to each student regularly.  My office hours are intended to be opportunities for students to come for one-on-one discussions about anything: from writing and research problems to problems with class dynamics.  You just want to talk about ideas or something inter­esting you’ve read?  Come on in.  I like talking with students.  I’ll do my best to make you feel comfortable.  Please take advantage of this time.

Phone Messages

If you call my office and find that I am not available, please do not leave a voice mail message for me.  Instead, send me an email outlining the problem.  If it is a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, I’ll probably get back to you that day or the next.  If it’s Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, you can expect a reply on Monday. 

 

Reasonable Accommodations for Students with Documented Disabilities

 

Reasonable accommodations will be made for students with documented disabilities.  Students requiring reasonable accommodation must provide me with a documentation letter from Disability Support Services no later than September 10, 2003.  Please contact the office of Disability Support Services (Marvin Center Suite 242; 801 21^st St. NW, Washington, DC 20052; Tel. 202-994-8250; V/TDD 202-994-8250; FAX 202-994-7610; dss@gwu.edu with any questions or requests for accommodations.

 

Cell Phones, Pagers, Recording Devices

 

Please turn off all cell phones or pagers before entering the classroom.  If, in case of emergency, you must receive a call during class, please set the ringer on vibrate, rise quickly, exit the classroom, and answer the call outside the room.  In no case may lectures or discussion be recorded on any kind of device without the explicit written consent of the instructor and other participants.

 

How to Survive AS 167

 

As you can tell from the syllabus, I’ve assigned a lot of reading for you to do this semester.  About 1600 pages in 14 weeks.  I can guess what you’re thinking:  <1600 divided by 14 weeks = 115 pages a week.  No doubt there’ll be some writing assignments, maybe even an exam!  HE MUST BE OUT OF HIS MIND!!!>  

 

A few words of advice from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:  DON’T PANIC, (but do eat some peanuts before beaming aboard this Mothership).

 

Rest assured that it is my intention to see you succeed in this class. [1]   Here’s what I need from you.

 

ü      A commitment to read about an hour a day, every day of the week—7 hours in all for reading.  Add 2 hours a week for writing; that’s 9 hours a week total 

 

ü      A promise that you won’t try to prepare for class in one 7 hour marathon session, no matter how tempting it might be.  Cognitive psychologists have established an inverse correlation between brain fatigue and ability to absorb information; critical thinking processes suffer as well.  Attention and retention begins to decline even within the first hour.

 

ü      Clear and open communication lines.  Tell me when you’re having problems; let me help you design and implement a solution.  Don’t wait and hope that things will get better on their own.

 

Here’s what I’ll offer you in return.

 

Ø      The 9-hour limit will be sacrosanct.  Keep a careful and honest time log: When you hit the 9-hour limit, put your book down, stop writing (well, do finish the paragraph), and call it a week.

 

Ø      An opportunity to talk about the readings in class in a supportive environment—every week.  All kinds of questions will be welcomed.

 

Ø      Writing assignments that can be completed in two, separate, one-hour sittings, and a procedure for doing them.

 

Sound fair?  Good.  Here’s how we make it work.

 

Reading and Notetaking

 

Now, 115 pages, divided by 7 hours equals about 16.5 well-read pages an hour, or a third of a page a minute (on average).  In order to keep up this pace, you need a system—not only for taking notes—but for the reading process itself.  Here’s one. 

 

Remember that the most abstract or conceptual point in a paragraph of non-fiction is usually either at the beginning of the paragraph or the end.  That’s where you’ll find claims, interpretive statements, theses, conclusions—the stuff that the writer uses to get you to see what s/he wants you to remember.  In between the beginning and the end you’ll find supporting material: examples, statistics, stories, explanations.   So as you read, be sure you understand what the main point of the paragraph is.  Underline the phrase that conveys the main point (and don’t underline anything else—too much clutter in your text will make it useless).  Then, in the left margin write a few (and only a few) words that describe the content of the paragraph.  Not every paragraph will demand such a note.  Just the ones you want to remember.  (You might make an index to your reading as you go.  Write down the page number and the one or two word description label).  In the right margin, make a brief comment now and again.  Try to comment at least every other page.  But don’t get too busy on the page.

 

The following is what your annotated paragraph might look like.  The text is from William Burrows, This New Ocean, an excellent history of the Space Race in the Twentieth century, p. 4.  One thing to note.  Burrows is fond of using his conclusions as transition sentences, heading the next paragraph.  So I’ve moved the first sentence of the next paragraph to the end here, for demonstration.

 

 

Paragraph Description	Text	Comments:
Conflicting Themes in Space History	The story of the first space age is set in a cauldron whose soup is laced with altruists and scoundrels, visionaries and parasites, heroes and naves.  It is the story of political ideologies that fought relentlessly above the atmosphere, as they did on the planet beneath it, in a dangerous duel for global supremacy that was more illusion that serious possibility.  Using space to help humanity communicate, forecast the weather, and accomplish other beneficial things, and traveling there for the ultimate adventure and refuge, was the central core of the idea.  It was the great philosophical driving force, the engine, that seemed to make a presence in space imperative.  Yet space could be reached only by rockets and the shame of it was that rockets were conceived and reconceived time and again, expressly to wreak unparalleled destruction and kill large numbers of the very people whose enlightenment and salvation they promised.	Space is a Cold War battleground, literally and figuratively       How could space be a refuge?     Inherent paradox of space travel   Notice both the secular and religious terms for transcendence

 

Remember, though, that the key to reading quickly and well is to keep moving and look for the big picture, namely the narrative and/or thematic line holding the facts together.

 

OK, so you’ve been reading for 45 or 50 minutes, and you made it through 16 pages.  Skip to the end of the section or the end of the chapter, if you’re close, and scan the ending.  What’s the author’s walk-away point?  The one s/he wants to remember?  Got it?  Good.  Now, before you leave, write a brief paragraph that gets at the main idea of the section you read today.  When you come back to your reading tomorrow, you’ll use this paragraph to refresh your memory.  Such a paragraph written for the first 18 pages of Burrow’s book might look like this:  The idea of challenging gravity, the “force that holds [humankind] to Earth” (p. 3) has a long history—over 2000 years. Daedalus, Leonardo da Vinci, Lucian, Copernicus, and Tsiolkovsky all used the idea of leaving the earth to challenge established ideas and express aspirations for transcendence.  Rockets had some of their origins in Chinese alchemy; they were used for warfare from the very start.  The adventures of Columbus and the findings of Copernicus and Kepler inspired people to imagine voyages of discovery in the heavens.

 

Notice how I tried to express the main themes of the section, and convey some of the narrative line that substantiates it.  I’ve established that this idea is a fundamental part of the way human beings think about themselves, their societies, and their hopes for the future.  Be sure that you end each reading session by writing this summary paragraph.

 

With this technique, you should be able to assemble functional notes in a reasonably timely fashion.

 

Now, reading is the first step, if the most time consuming one, in your work this semester.  In order to consolidate the information in the texts, and develop a deeper understanding of the course materials, you need to write about it in a more structured setting.

 

As I promised earlier, the writing assignments will be designed so that you can finish them in two one-hour sittings.  But the two-hour promise is contingent on you having done 7 hours of reading, annotation and summary.  You will not be able to complete the writing assignments in two hours if you need to read or re-read the texts.

 

Reader Reports

 

Twice this semester, you’ll write brief Reader Reports.  These Reports will be opportunities for you to encapsulate the fiction and non-fiction readings for the week, as well as think-on-paper about the themes, ideas, images, and symbols raised by them. 

 

Besides your name and other identifiers, each Report should contain the following numbered and titled sections:

 

1.  PUBLICATION DATA: Author(s), title(s), and publication data (include source and year of original publication) on each of the readings covered in the Guide.

2.  DESCRIPTIONS:  A brief description of each of the readings covered.  For the fiction, nutshell the plot and identify basic themes.  For the non-fiction, state the main point and describe at least two pieces of evidence.  100 words per reading.

3.  DISCUSSION:  A well-organized short essay defending a claim about the links between the historical context contained in the non-fiction and the cultural narratives found in the fiction.  Your essay must answer an interpretive question you develop.  Transcribe your question in italics at the head of your essay.  300-400 words maximum (not including question).

 

As examples of the kinds of questions that make for good short essays, consider the following:

 

A.  Early American science fiction often prominently featured independent inventors as heroic characters at precisely the time in American history when real independent inventors were going the way of the dinosaur.  Why did this character appeal to science fiction’s primary readership?  What was this readership?  How were their needs, values, and aspirations represented in the narrative and formal features of the stories?

 

B.  In the late 1950s, the technocratic vision of the future articulated by John W. Campbell, Jr., and his stable of writers, began to lose its credibility as a usable future.  Why?  What were the promises of the technocratic future?  What changes in American society made those promises seem false?  How did a new generation of writers begin to reject the technocratic future?  How did older writers deal with the failure of their work? 

 

The Writing Process

 

Here’s the process for essay writing that I recommend.   Break your 2-hour writing commitment into two one-hour sittings.  During the first sitting, you need to discover what you find interesting, frame it as an answerable question, and develop a pretty good sense of what your answers are.  This you can do in one hour.  But you can’t do it just by thinking about it.  You’ve got to write during this first hour.  Here’s a schedule for the 1^st hour:

 

First One-Hour Writing Session

§         Minutes 1-5:  Brainstorm:  Make a list of single words about which you might write. 

§         Minutes 6-15:  2^nd Level Brainstorm:  Choose 2 or 3 of those words and make sub-lists.  Try to develop contrasts, similarities, complements,

§         Minutes 16-30:  Free-Writing:  Choose one of these list/sub-lists.  Write for 10 minutes about this list.  Don’t try for paragraphs or good sentences, don’t pause to think of a word.  Just keep writing without censoring yourself.  Or, Write as many declarative sentences about the topic as possible.

§         Minutes 31-45:  Analyze your free-writing.  Circle suggestive phrases, words, sentences, or examples.  Think about what you might have meant by this or that phrase—make annotations on your free-writing.  Think of examples you might use, and write them down.

§         Minutes 46-60:  Focused Free-Writing:  In nutshell fashion write down the main points of your exploratory essay.  You may not get all of them, but you can add more later.  Try to get at least one good paragraph that conveys the gist of your essay.  Write a tentative title for your paper—make it descriptive and a little jazzy.  Write potential walk-in and walk-away sentences.

§         TAKE A BREAK

During the second hour you need to produce a short paper.  While you were open to all ideas during the first hour, you need to commit to a few good solid ideas in this second hour.  What are your best points?  How can they be developed?  Don’t strive for breadth; rather teach your reader something interesting about the topic.  Mostly you want to make positive points about what you’ve got to say rather than simply responding to the readings.

Second One-Hour Writing Session

¨      Minutes 1-5:  Re-read your focused free-writing.  Make any additional notes as they come to you.

¨      Minutes 6-35:  Write a draft.  Get the main ideas on paper in order.  Install the examples and explanations in the right places.

¨      Minutes 36-45:  Analyze your draft.  Make your assertions clear.  Check to see that your examples and explanations mean what you think they do.  Check to make sure that you’ve drawn a conclusion at the end of each main point.

¨      Minutes 45-60:  Polish the draft.  Refine the title.  Make sure that you have a beginning that introduces your topic, a middle that explains a set of points, and a conclusion that tells the reader what to think about you’ve written.  Be sure that you have good walk-in and walk-away sentences.