Today__
1)Questions about the Midterm
:3 sections (1/ definitions of key words; 2/ short essay response (about three paragraphs) re: elements of fiction; 3/ short essay response re: elements of SF)
Sec1
1.Genre
2.Definition-
3.Why the term is important in SF studies
Sec2
Three paragraphs about some particular element of a story we have read(examples:setting,
plot,character, theme, narrative point of view, figurative language/style).
(sample question):
-*the way in which a story is told often helps to develop the meaning of the story. Consider the narrative
points of view in ONE of the following stories*-
Sec3
One page(three to five paragraphs) open-ended question related to the study reading, and interpretation of SF.
(sample question):
-*Write about two diff characters from two diff stories that we have read
Compare/contrast characters and reflect on similarities and differences may have to say about SF in the era they werent wrriten in*-
_____________________________________________________________________
2) Re: Vlad’s question, three major “eras” of SF + genre issues
>Pulp Era – 1920s-1930s
>Golden Age – 1938-1946 example(“we can remember it for you wholesale” by Philip K. Dick)
>New Wave – 1960s-1970s
-(Post New Wave)-current era
*theorectical – ideal
*historical – realistic
1945- Atomic bomb was first used
(Early 1960s):
the comics code(1960s)
silver age of comics(1960s)
Civil Rights Movement
The Beatles
JFK Assassination (1963)
(post new wave)
9/11
Questions about government
-counter cultural revolution of the 1960s
_______________________________________________________________________
3)”Helen O’Loy” Discussion
*published 1938-*WW2 is about to begin
*CHANGE IN EDITORSHIP OF AMAZING STORIES*
*Hugo Gernsback
*Successor to Hugo: { John C Campbell }
happy/tear-jerker ending
Highly structured
Technologies can replicate and mimic humanity
Technologies become human like
Helen could not imagine being a robot
with “Helen O’Loy” robots are equal to humans; in “Reason'(1941),robots are suprassing humans and
dominating them
Specific details of the technologies being built and implemented
Both stories are about sentience and human consciousness
If we can create life, does that give us the right ot take it away?
