Homework for Next Class

• Watch the very 1st episode of Westworld and post a blog about it. As you watch it, you must take note of when events you would like to discuss in class occur. When creating the blog, be sure to make reference to the video and cite correctly (01:30:50).

 

Extra Credit

Three different extra credit opportunities will be coming in the near future, including events about:

• The symposium
• Frankenstein exhibit
• Performance Space New York – will discuss post-humanism

To receive extra credit, you must attend an event and post a blog about it. The blog could be about what you learned and what you thought were the most important takeaways. Remember, these are 3 different extra credit events. More information will be available soon.

 

 Literature Courses 

Level 2000 and 3000 literature courses will be available in the Spring of 2019. The Professor specifically mentioned the Major Topics in Writing and One Major Writer courses. For more information on literature courses, visit the Openlab site or check the photos below.

 

Andrew Marvell’s Poem

We briefly mentioned Andrew Marvell’s poem “to his coy mistress.”

 

Vocabulary

• Extrapolate: To take circumstances to the future and then speculate on what could happen.
• Pedantic: To be preachy and lecturing.

 

The Image of Women in Science Fiction Article

This is an article that discusses how women have been stereotyped in science fiction. The main points the author makes include:

• How science fiction sometimes creates a matriarchy in their stories. This occurs when authors attempt to reverse the roles of gender as opposed to abolishing them. Matriarchies are static and hierarchical by nature.
• Science fiction can imagine all things technological, but lacks creativity when discussing human relations, especially gender-roles. For example, women are always shown to be weak and require rescuing. This is a common trend in soft science fiction.
• The absolute value of progress is one of the most common things in science fiction, but it is probably wrong.
• Gender-roles have a straitjacket attached to them. In a broad sense, a straitjacket is something that constrains possibilities. Gender-roles are described in this manner because “there are no real women in science fiction” because they are just stereotypes.

 

Science Fiction’s Women Problem Article

This is a controversial article that discusses women in science fiction. We touched on several points about the article:

• Groups such as Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies complained about how people look at science fiction to “vivisect” society. This is exactly what our class does.
• They also complained about the forced diversity in the the science fiction awards ceremony.

The author’s main points include:

• Science fiction needs different mindsets to broaden views.
• Gender equality is essential to sci-fi being important.
• Women are underrepresented in the science fiction field. This includes the writing and book reviewing fields. This means that balance is lacking.
• Representation is important because it will determine who creates the stories and reviews the books.
• Sci-fi has an ethical responsibility to balance things.

We also talked a bit about hard science fiction and soft science fiction:

• Most men write hard science fiction while most women write soft science fiction.
  • Women are not represented well in STEM fields, so they do not create hard science fiction.
• Hard science fiction is more respected.
• There is a perceived hierarchy in these types of science fiction.

 

The Handmaid’s Tale

Why was this novel recreated 30 years later (2016)?

• A big reason was because of the election, Donald Trump, the Alt-Right movement, the huge resurface of racism and the presence of misogyny.

How did this world came to be?

• There was a decrease in childbirth (infertility) due to the radiation and toxic waste around the world. Apparently, there was enough destruction to warrant a new system. A real-life example of this is 9/11.  As a result of the terrorists attack, a war began and the Patriot act was enacted to prevent similar events from occurring in the future.

Fun fact: The author of the book, Margaret Atwood, makes a short appearance when she slaps the main character.