Following today’s class, post your 250-word summary on today’s readings (Moore’s “Shambleau” and excerpts from Burrough’s A Princess of Mars) and lecture as a comment made to this blog post.

Please post your summaries of the lecture and readings for last Wednesday’s class as a comment made to this blog post.

Online Fractal Explorer, http://gis.ibbeck.de/apps/Mandelbrot/htdocs/wms_mandelbrot_frames.html

Mandelbrot Images article on Wired.com, https://www.wired.com/2013/01/mandelbrot-images/

Scientific American, August 1985 article on the Mandelbrot set, http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v253/n2/pdf/scientificamerican0885-16.pdf

Nina Samuel’s book, The Islands of Benoit Mandelbrot, https://www.amazon.com/Islands-Beno%C3%AEt-Mandelbrot-Fractals-Materiality/dp/0300186436/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506552647&sr=8-1&keywords=nina+samuel+mandelbrot

We’re going to go on a field trip for the first half of class on Wednesday, September 27. The plan is below. Please help me get the word out to everyone in class using your personal contacts so that everyone knows what we’re doing.

On Wednesday, September 27 at 6:00pm, let’s meet in Namm 119 (this is the room next to the cafeteria, in the space leading to the Atrium) for a special guest lecture by Professor Nina Samuel from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. She is giving a talk titled, “The Islands of Benoit Mandelbrot: Exhibiting the Materiality of Thinking.” I think that you all should learn some things about fractal geometry covered in this talk, because those things will inform some of your thinking and reading about science fiction later this semester.

The talk begins at 6:00pm, so please arrive a few minutes early to find a seat if possible. If you arrive late, please come on in, but find a seat quietly. I recommend that everyone have a notebook out to jot down some notes of things that you learn in the talk.

The talk is scheduled to last until 7:30pm. After it is over, let’s make our way back to our normal classroom in Namm 605 as quickly as possible to take attendance, and talk about the lecture and your two readings for Wednesday’s class—H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (abridged) and E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops.”

Since we will have less time for lecture, I am making the lecture available online as a video. You can watch it here:

It is about 30 minutes long. Try to watch this video and make your lecture notes from it before class on Wednesday so that you can ask me questions about it when we meet after the guest lecture.

Again, please spread the word to your friends in class in case they don’t see this announcement in their email or on OpenLab. If you have any questions about Wednesday’s class, please let me know.

Before our next class (two weeks from today), post a comment of at least 250 words summarizing what you have read in Volume 3 of Frankenstein and the lecture notes that we discussed during today’s class.

If you have not finished reading Frankenstein, use the upcoming break to catch up on your reading, and continue with the next assigned readings: H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (abridged) and E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops.” Links to these stories are available on the syllabus page.

Before our next meeting, write at least 250 words summarizing your reading of Frankenstein through chapter xvii and our in-class lecture. Your summary does not need to include everything that we cover, but you should select the information that you think is the most important. For example, you will want to include Mary Shelley’s full name, her birth and death years, some biographical details, and the major plot points from the novel. Of course, you may write more than 250 words, but to receive full credit, your comment must be at least that long. Write your summary in your favorite word processor, save your work, and then copy-and-paste it into a comment made to this blog post.

Here is the list of science fiction books, films, and video games that you all shared in our first class:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick)

Mirrorshades (Sterling)

Black Mirror

Destiny (video game)

Watchmen (comic book)

Star Wars

Star Trek

Enemy Mine

r/no sleep (short stories)

Tim Burton films

Star Trek TNG

The Martian

Ready Player One

1984

Marvel/DC

The Flash

Futrama

Rick and Morty

Justice League/Batman

Mass Effect (VG)

Shin Megami Tensei series

Anime (Gundam, Gurran, Ghost in the Shell)

The Defenders

Percy Jackson (books)

Mythology books

I, Robot

Avatar

Brotherhood

Naruto

Ex Machina

Fantasy and SF—Star Wars

Marvel Cinematic Universe

2001

Stranger Things

ET

Lucy

Her

Alien

Terminator

Predator

Robocop

Stargate

Click here to read the course learning outcomes for ENG2420.

Welcome to ENG 2420 Science Fiction with Prof. Ellis. We will use this OpenLab site to communicate and collect some of your work. If you ever have any questions, remember to email Prof. Ellis at jellis at citytech.cuny.edu or visit his office in Namm 520 during office hours.