ENG2420 E573 Science Fiction, Spring 2020

Here’s a link to the presentation slide deck that I will anchor the lecture.

Reminder: Turn in a hard copy or email a scanned or generated PDF attachment of your notes so far this semester. You should have notes on every class and all the readings. As I’ve said before, I encourage you to share notes but you must copy others notes into your own script. Review the lecture videos for any days that you missed of class. This midterm assignment is worth 20% of your final grade. All those notebooks turned in as a hard copy will be returned the following week.

2nd Reminder: Each week, you will need to write a 250-word summary of the lecture and readings on these “Assignment” posts. These assignments contribute to the 20% of your grade of “Weekly Summaries of Readings and Viewings.” They should focus on the lecture and the readings assigned for that lecture. So, this week’s summary should focus on the Pulp SF lecture and the readings by Edgar Rice Burroughs and C.L. Moore.

This week, we discussed Proto-SF and the two assigned readings: H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine and E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops.” Below, I’m embedding a video of the lecture for your review:

Also, here’s a link to the Science Fiction at City Tech site, which includes information about SF-related goings-on at City Tech, the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, and other valuable SF-focused resources.

Before our next class, please remember to write at least 250 words summarizing the lecture and your reading. Save that writing some place safe. Then, copy-and-paste it into a comment to this post.

If you need to turn in an assignment late, please do so, but remember to email me (jellis at citytech.cuny.edu). Be sure to include information about which lecture/reading your late assignment is for so that I can find your work and check it off for you.

Next week, we will talk about the SF Pulps combined with readings by Edgar Rice Burroughs and C.L. Moore. See the syllabus for links to the readings.

Above, I embedded a video recording of our third lecture, which covers the last part of the Frankenstein lecture, discussion of definitions of Science Fiction, and feedback from you all about SF that you’re currently reading, watching, and playing.

If you need to review any of our past lectures, I created a playlist where I’ll link to all the lecture videos. You can find it here.

Before next week, you should write at least 250 words summarizing the lecture and your reading of Frankenstein. You get to choose what to include in your summary, but what you write should always be focused on what we discuss and what you are reading in the class. I’m evaluating these weekly writing assignments based on best effort. They are meant to help you synthesize ideas from the class while building in regular writing practice.

Also, look at the syllabus for our next readings by H.G. Wells and E.M. Forster. If you need to prioritize your reading, focus on Forster’s “The Machine Stops” first. And, please use Wikipedia, Google Search, YouTube, and other resources to find out about the stories–who wrote them, what they are about, etc.–before you read them. Knowing a little bit about the stories in advance makes it easier to dive into them and think about what they might mean.

Finally, you all gave some great examples of contemporary SF that you’re watching and interested in. Here’s the list that we generated in class with a few more examples that I thought of based on individual conversations with students in the class:

Blade Runner
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Ex Machina
Cloud Atlas
Worm
Tavelers
Arrival
The Three Body Problem
The 100
Black Mirror
The Twlight Zone
The Fifth Element
Mass Effect
Halo
Blue Gender
Akira
Final Fantasy VII
Altered Carbon
Half-Life
Doom
The Expanse
Janelle Monáe
Sun Ra

I wanted to thank everyone for being on time and ready to learn some more about Science Fiction and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Above, I’ve embedded a video of the second lecture. It covers the continuation of the Mary Shelley lecture started in the first video lecture and it concludes with the overview of the list of science fiction definitions.

Before our class on Feb. 19, add a comment to this post of at least 250 words that summarizes the lecture and your reading of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Remember, you only need to show best effort. Write about what you think is most important from the lecture. Write about how you might describe what you’ve read in Frankenstein to a friend. The goal is to look back at your notes, think about them, and write brief summaries of the lecture and reading. You should see if your comment posts correctly. If in doubt, reload the page and confirm that it posts. If not, copy-and-paste your writing again and click “Post Comment” and then confirm.

Some reminders:

• Make notes of your reading in your notebook. The kinds of things that I keep notes on of my readings include: character names, plot points, settings, words and their definitions, etc.
• If you want to read and then make notes after reading, you might write a summary of your reading by volume, chapter, etc.
• Again, I’m not looking for a particular way of your keeping notes as long as you are making notes in some way that are useful to you.
• Aim to have Frankenstein completed before class on Feb. 19 when we meet next.
• If you have any questions, email me at jellis at citytech.cuny.edu.

Since we’re just starting the class, this first writing assignment is much lower stakes than those that follow. For this first assignment, write a comment to this blog post that introduces yourself to me and your classmates, and that summarizes what I talked about in lecture and what you read before our next class.

For this first assignment, please spend more writing on yourself and tell us your major, your career goals, and your background/interest in Science Fiction. You can include your favorite SF or maybe what introduced you to SF. Then, briefly write about what I discussed in lecture (only a sentence or two) and what you are reading (again, only a sentence or two is necessary–but be sure to include the title, author’s full name, publication year, and something about what you’ve read so far–e.g., or for example, “So far, the book is about Walton sailing on a voyage of discovery and then his encounter with a man marooned on a floating piece of ice named Victor Frankenstein, who tells Walton about how he came to be there.”

It should be at least 250 words long. This is about 1 page, double spaced worth of writing. If you have the time and energy to write more, I highly encourage it as the 250-word mark is a minimal length. Looking ahead, there might be some weeks that you only write 250 words and others you might want to write more based on your reaction to the lectures and the readings.

These weekly writing assignments are based on best effort. If the word count is met and there are sufficient details, you will receive full credit for that week’s assignment. If the word count is low and/or the writing has too many empty words–meaning not focused on the task of summarizing lecture and readings–less credit will be received.

I STRONGLY suggest writing your weekly summary in a word processor like Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, or Google Docs first, so that your work is saved somewhere else. Then, copy-and-paste your writing into the comment box below this post (remember to click on the post’s title and scroll down the subsequent page to find the comment box). Finally, click the “Post Comment” button and wait for visual confirmation that your post was successful.

Always keep a copy of your work saved elsewhere in case your comment disappears from OpenLab for whatever reason. To check how many comments you have made over the semester, you can easily do so by going to our OpenLab site > Mouseover the title of the site at the top of the page > Click on Dashboard > Click on Comments on the left > type in your name in the search box on the right > Click “Search Comments.” The number of “approved” comments will appear under your name in the list.