All Reading & Composition courses must be taken for a letter grade in order to fulfill this requirement for the Bachelor’s Degree. This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

CCN: 53602

2015’s Jurassic World ranks among the most financially successful films ever made, but is it science fiction? Reviews label it a “pure fantasy” “effects-driven” “spectacle”, but the original Jurassic Park–the New York Times bestseller written in 1989 by then Harvard medical student Michael Crichto –was praised for its terse, journalistic narrative and science-driven plot. This class will pose the question of its title – what is science fiction? – as a problem of genre, and will ask: where is the line between fantasy and reality in science fiction, when everything represented either on screen or on the page is speculative, fictional, or, in some cases, impossible? How can we realistically narrate or represent what isn’t real?

To answer these questions we will examine short stories and novels of the Russian, British, and American science fiction traditions, including Jurassic Park (Michael Crichton), The Martian (Andy Weir), A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess), We (Yevgeny Zamiatin), and “Bloodchild” (Octavia Butler), as well as the films 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick), Alien (Ridley Scott), and Interstellar (Christopher Nolan). We will also read some texts concerning the theory of realism in both fiction and cinema; students will be encouraged to develop a final research project based on a theoretical line of inquiry that interests them.

Our goal will be to develop and improve students’ ability to read critically and write clear, well-reasoned, articulate and persuasive research papers. Over the course of the semester, students will learn how to move from an interesting question, to a compelling argument, to a successful paper. To that end students will write several progressively longer essays, revising them in drafts, culminating in a final research paper (of 7-10 pages) that, chosen from a list of offered themes, thoughtfully and concisely examines a given concept in relation to the reading assignments. Referencing Michael Harvey’s The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing (for purchase) as well as selections (available online) from Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style, the course will prepare students for this final paper. In-class, we will examine all aspects of the creative process together, focusing on topics ranging from the selection of themes to developing arguments, from organizing effective structures and strategies of writing to mastering sentence construction.

Weekly readings will typically average 50-60 pages, so students will be expected to complete all assigned readings, to come to class prepared to speak about them, and to participate actively in all class discussions. Although most of the readings will be available for free on the class bCourses page, students are encouraged to come to class with the texts in-hand, printed out.

Texts:

For purchase:
Yevgeny Zamiatin, We. Trans. Mirra Ginsburg. Eos: New York, 1999. ISBN: 978-0380633135.
Michael Harvey, The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing. Hackett: Indianapolis, 2003. ISBN: 978-0-87220-573-4

Available online, in class, or in the course reader:
Andy Weir, The Martian (selections)
Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park (selections)
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild”
Viktor Pelevin, “Hermit and Sixfinger”
Andrei Siniavsky, “Pkhents”
Robert A. Heinlein, “Pandora’s Box”
Innokenty Zhukov, “The Voyage of the Red Star Pioneer Troop to Wonderland” (selections)
Tatiana Tolstaia, The Slynx (selections)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), dir. Stanley Kubrick
Alien (1979), dir. Ridley Scott
Mario Falsetto, Stanley Kubrick: A Narrative & Stylistic Analysis (selections)
Thomas Allen Nelson, Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist’s Maze (selections) and The Symposium on Alien (selections)

William Strunk & EB White, The Elements of Style (selections)

Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.