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American Cultures and the Arts
American Studies 3111 Section 2
University of Minnesota
Fall 2000
Scott Hall 4, Tuesday Evenings
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Space
Culture: Science, Science Fiction, and
the American Dream of Transcendence
Eric Drown, Instructor
Office: 329 Scott Hall
Office Hours: Tuesday 5-6, and by appointment
drown001@tc.umn.edu
Introduction
We hardly feel the wonder of it anymore. But human beings and their machine surrogates have left the planet, traveled across the depths of space, set foot on the moon, and returned safely. Voyager, a spacecraft bearing a message to intelligent life out there, travels through interstellar space in search of our closest neighbors. The international space station project currently underway carries with it the hopes of many nations. In the United States alone, billions of dollars are invested in space research annually by government agencies and aerospace corporations. The pursuit of space is vital to national security, scientific progress, and international relations, some argue. Others claim that money spent on space research could better be spent on Earth, funding programs in education, medicine, social outreach, or other worthy causes.
For still other people, space is a powerful symbol bringing order and meaning to their lives as individuals. In pursuit of immortality, salvation, escape, or awesome wonder, they work and live the action-adventure mythology of space as the final frontier. Building and flying privately funded rockets meant to help them escape Earth’s gravity, some of these people hope to stake their pioneer’s claim on the cosmos. Others bring space to earth, investing significant portions of their emotional and intellectual lives in UFO-centered belief systems.
Though one might easily think so, space is not just a powerful symbol for white Americans. Afro-futurists such as George Clinton and Octavia Butler transform the meaning of space by infusing it with transmogrifying power of funk and the history of race in America.
What did space mean to Americans in the twentieth
century? How did it get to be such a
powerful and fluid metaphor for their lives as individuals and as a
collective? What implications does the
pursuit of space—symbolic or real—have for our future? These are the questions we’ll ask and answer
in this course.
Required Texts: East Bank Bookstore, Williamson Hall. NB: There are additional Required Readings on Reserve at Norris Hall.
William E. Burrows, This New Ocean
Constance Penley, NASA/Trek
Ed Regis, The Great Mambo Chicken & The Transhuman Condition
David Lavery, Late For the Sky
Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
Written Assignments: 3 Grade Models
First Model: Six brief essays (3 pages each). The first two essays are each worth 10% of the final grade. The last four essays are each worth 20% of the final grade. Students choosing this model are encouraged to meet with me in office hours periodically to review your progress. This model is recommended for students who want to explore a variety of topics throughout the semester.
Second Model: One midterm essay and one end-term essay (7 to 9 pages each). The first is worth 45% of the final grade, the second 55% of the final grade. Students choosing this model will be required to meet with me in office hours two times during each half of the term. This model is recommended for students who want more space to develop their ideas on fewer topics.
Third Model: One term essay (14 to18 pages) worth 100% of the final grade. Students choosing this model will be required to meet with me in office hours four times during the term. This option is not recommended for students who have not successfully written longer essays (at least 10 pages) in the past (a writing sample will be requested).
Choose carefully; no student will be allowed to change his or her assignment model after September 26, 2000.
Reading Schedule
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Date |
Reading |
On Reserve [R]; In Class [C] |
|
Sept. 5 |
First Day of Class |
“Rocket Summer” & “The Rocket of 1955” [C] |
|
Sept. 12 |
This New Ocean, ix-xi, Chs. 1-5 (185 pages) |
“Secret Unattainable” or “Flight into Darkness” [each R] |
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Sept. 19 |
This New Ocean, Chs. 6-10 (201 pages) |
“Surface Tension” or “The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton” [each R] |
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Sept. 26 |
This New Ocean, Chs. 11-14 (164 pages) |
“Trends” or “Alexander the Bait” [each R] |
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Oct. 3 |
This New Ocean, Chs. 15-17 (95 pages) |
“Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster” [R] |
|
Oct. 10 |
NASA/Trek, pp. 1-96 |
“The Moon is Always Female” [R] |
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Oct. 17 |
NASA/Trek, pp. 97-148 |
“The Lady Who Sailed the Soul” [R] |
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Oct. 24 |
Great Mambo Chicken, Chs. 1-4 (143 pages) |
“The Cosmic Express” [R] |
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Oct. 31 |
Great Mambo Chicken, Chs. 5-Epilogue (145 pages) |
“Adam and No Eve” [R] |
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Nov. 7 |
View Cocoon outside of class |
“Way Up in the Middle of the Air,” “The Gold at Starbow’s End,” “Getting Out of the Gernsback Continuum” [all R] |
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Nov. 14 |
View Close Encounters of the Third Kind outside of class. |
“Unarius” and “Waiting for the Ships” [all R] |
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Nov. 21 |
Late for the Sky, Intro., Chs. 1-3 (123 pages) |
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Nov. 28 |
Late for the Sky, Chs. 4-Conclusion (96 pages) |
“A Reckoning” [R] |
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Dec. 5 |
Parable of the Sower; 1st half |
George Clinton, “Mothership Connection” [C] |
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Dec. 12 |
Parable of the Sower; 2nd half |
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Coping with American Studies 3111:
The Reading Schedule
and
Writing Assignments
As you can tell from the syllabus, I’ve assigned a lot of reading for you to do this semester—about 1600 pages in the books alone. Reserve reading—mostly fiction—will add 300 to 400 more pages to your to-do list. Let’s say 2000 pages in 16 weeks. I can guess what you’re thinking: <2000 divided by 16 weeks = 125 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 A structure for collaborating on readings with colleagues.
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.
Gather all of your reserve reading materials in one trip to the Reserve Desk in Norris Hall (not Walter Library as in recent years. Walter Reserve is closed for renovation).
Now, 125 pages, divided by 7 hours equals just under 18 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 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. See Bazerman’s “Reacting to Your Reading” on Reserve at Norris for a description of the kinds of things Active Readers notice.
The following is what your annotated paragraph might look like. The text is from William Burrows, This New Ocean, 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.
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Paragraph Description |
Text |
Comments: |
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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.
Several times this quarter, you’ll write brief exploratory essays. These papers will be opportunities for you to think-on-paper about the themes, ideas, images, and symbols raised by the readings. I can think of a couple topics off the top of my head. We’ll develop others as the course goes on.
1. If, as Burrows says, some people think of space as a refuge—a shelter, a haven, sanctuary, a cloister, an escape, a retreat—it is a place to go to escape something. Political refugees leave one country where their lives, freedoms, or opportunities are threatened to go to another place where the threat is, minimally, diminished—if only temporarily. Wildlife refuges are places where animal habitats are maintained against the encroachments of human habitats. How is space a refuge? Who are its refugees? From what do they need protection? What is encroaching upon the species? How is it psychologically or socially useful for these people to think of space in this way?
2. As we’ll discover later in the quarter when we read about some UFO cults, some people look to space for salvation. What kind of salvation are they seeking? If we take the religious language seriously, other questions arise. From what do they need to be redeemed? Who is the agent of salvation? What ideas, images, and symbols does the idea of space activate for them that traditional religious belief systems do not? What do such people find lacking in traditional belief systems? How is it psychologically or socially useful for these people to think of space in this way? [this last one will be a recurring question].
Here’s the process for 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 1st hour:
First One-Hour Writing Session
§ Minutes 1-5: Brainstorm: Make a list of single words about which you might write.
§ Minutes 6-15: 2nd 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.
[1] To be clear, my definition of “success in the class” is not “to get an A.” I define success as passing the class, becoming grounded in the fundamentals of the topic, and developing intellectual skills such as reading, writing, interpretation, explanation, and presenting ideas.