Greetings, all!
I hope that you and your families are doing well. This is a trying time for us all, and I wish you both strength and serenity to make it through to the other side of these trials we must face.
By now, I hope that you have heard the announcements by Chancellor Matos Rodriguez about changes to our academic calendar. If you haven’t, you can read his announcement here. Essentially, he devotes some of this week to what he calls the “Recalibration Period for Educational Equity,” which is meant to streamline some of the online teaching and access to computers for students, and the new, shortened Spring Recess, which will be Wednesday, April 8 through Friday, April 10.
Due to this new schedule, we won’t have lecture this week or next. However, I will be working on my video lectures for you to resume the week of Tuesday, April 7 (a CUNY Conversion Day), and I will be available to talk over email (jellis at citytech.cuny.edu) any time and my next video office hours will be on Tuesday, April 7.
Please use this hiatus to take care of yourselves and your families. If you have time available, get caught up in our class and your other classes, too. I’m happy to receive your work late–just drop me an email to let me know that you’ve posted it to OpenLab (for your weekly summaries) or email your midterm notebook to me directly.
The currently due Lecture 7/Golden Age of SF readings summary is now due before we return for Lecture 8/Continuing the Golden Age of SF on Tuesday, April 7 (this is a CUNY Conversion Day).
Also, I’ll post this message in a video above soon. Watch it for some additional advice about how to be a successful student with distance learning.
The new schedule for our class is on the syllabus page and included below.
| 10 | W | Apr 1 | Recalibration Period for Educational Equity, see this message from Chancellor Matos Rodriguez for additional details. |
| 12 | T | Apr 7 | Conversion Day Robert Heinlein, “—All You Zombies” https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v016n03_1959-03_PDF Tom Godwin, “The Cold Equations” https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v53n06_1954-08_Sirius-Starhome No class on Wednesday, April 8, for shortened spring recess, see this message from Chancellor Matos Rodriquez for additional details. |
| 13 | W | Apr 15 | Video: Forbidden Planet, https://www.veoh.com/watch/v92428824CnC7T8m4 Lecture on Conducting Research and Discussing the Research Essay |
| 14 | W | Apr 22 | Harlan Ellison, “Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman!” https://web.archive.org/web/20150226125018/https://cunycomposers.wikispaces.com/file/view/Ellison,+Harlan+–+Repent,+Harlequin+Said+the+Ticktockman.pdf Philip K. Dick, “The Electric Ant” https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v037n04_1969-10_PDF |
| 14 | W | Apr 29 | Samuel R. Delany, “Aye, and Gomorrah” http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/aye-and-gomorrah/ James Tiptree, Jr., “The Women Men Don’t See” https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v045n06_1973-12 In-class video: Star Trek, “The City on the Edge of Forever,” https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/star-trek (Season 1, Episode 28) |
| 15 | W | May 6 | Ursula K. LeGuin, “Nine Lives” http://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625791405/9781625791405___2.htm Octavia Butler, “Speech Sounds” https://archive.org/details/Asimovs_v07n13_1983-12-Mid |
| 16 | W | May 13 | William Gibson, “Burning Chrome,” https://web.archive.org/web/20190519005941/http://www.housevampyr.com/training/library/books/omni/OMNI_1982_07.pdf Video: The X-Files: “Kill Switch,” https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/the-x-files (Season 5, Episode 11) |
| 17 | W | May 20 | Research Essay due before class as a post on our OpenLab site. Class Notes, End of Semester due as a scanned PDF emailed to Prof. Ellis. Final Exam due as a Word docx file emailed to Prof. Ellis. |
