Readings

WEEK # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction: Possible Worlds

"Defining Science Fiction." In Science Fiction. pp. 1-36.

Buy at Amazon Le Guin, Ursula K. "Do-It-Yourself Cosmology." In The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1993, pp. 118-122. ISBN: 9780060924126.

Buy at Amazon Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan, Jr. "Science Fiction and This Moment." In The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008, pp. 1-12. ISBN: 9780819568892.

2 Techniques of Othering

Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials, all.

"Race and Star Trek." In Science Fiction. pp. 127-132.

Buy at Amazon Said, Edward. "Knowing the Oriental." In Orientalism. New York, NY: Vintage, 1979, pp. 31-49. ISBN: 9780394740676.

Buy at Amazon Adare, Sierra S. "Introduction," "Future 'Indians'," "Past Stereotypes." In "Indian" Stereotypes in TV Science Fiction: First Nations' Voices Speak Out. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2005, pp. 1-9, 29-31 and 37-41. ISBN: 9780292706125.

Buy at Amazon Delany, Samuel R. "Racism and Science Fiction." In Thomas, Sheree R. Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. New York, NY: Warner, 2000, pp. 381-397. ISBN: 9780446525831.

Buy at Amazon Sofia, Zoe. "Aliens 'R' U.S.: American Science Fiction Viewed from Down Under." In Slusser, George E., and Eric S. Rabkin. Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987, pp. 128-141. ISBN: 9780809313754.

Buy at Amazon Sobchack, Vivian. "The Alien," "Embracing the Alien, Erasing Alienation." In Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997, pp. 89-106 and 292-299. ISBN: 9780813524924.

3 First Contact

The Sparrow, all.

Buy at Amazon Fabian, Johannes. "Living and Dying," "Communicating and Commanding." In Out of Our Minds: Reason and Madness in the Exploration of Central Africa. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000, pp. 52-77 and 129-150. ISBN: 9780520221239.

Buy at Amazon Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. "Anthropology and the Savage Slot: The Poetics and Politics of Otherness." In Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2003, pp. 7-28. ISBN: 9780312295219.

4 Afrofuturism, Utopian and Dystopian

Brown Girl in the Ring, all.

Nelson, Alondra. "'Making the Impossible Possible': An Interview with Nalo Hopkinson." Social Text 71 (2002): 97-114.

Buy at Amazon James, Erica. "Haunting Ghosts: Madness, Gender, and Ensekirite in Haiti in the Democratic Era." In DelVecchio Good, Mary-Jo, Sandra Hyde, Sarah Pinto, and Byron Good. Postcolonial Disorders. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008, pp. 132-156. ISBN: 9780520252240.

Eglash, Ron. "Race, Sex, and Nerds: From Black Geeks to Asian American Hipsters." Social Text 71 (2002): 49-64.

Buy at Amazon Saunders, Charles R. "Why Blacks Should Read (and Write) Science Fiction." In Thomas, Sheree R. Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora. New York, NY: Warner, 2000, pp. 398-404. ISBN: 9780446525831.

Buy at Amazon Williams, Ben. "Black Secret Technology: Detroit Techno and the Information Age." In Nelson, Alondra, Thuy Linh N. Tu, and Alicia Hedlam Hines. Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2001, pp. 154-176. ISBN: 9780814736043.

5 Vampires!

Fledgling, all.

Stetson, George R. "The Animistic Vampire in New England." American Anthropologist 9 (1896): 1-13.

White, Luise. "Vampire Priests of Central Africa: Debates about Labor and Religions in Colonial Northern Zambia." Comparative Studies in Society and History 35 (1993): 746-772.

Buy at Amazon Haraway, Donna. In Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouse™: Feminism and Technoscience. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997, pp. 214-217. ISBN: 9780415912457.

6 Religion

Cat's Cradle, all.

Buy at Amazon Geertz, Clifford. "Religion as a Cultural System." In The Interpretation of Cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1973, pp. 87-125. ISBN: 9780465097197.

Buy at Amazon Blier, Suzanne Preston. "Truth and Seeing: Magic, Custom, and Fetish in Art History." In Bates, Robert H., V.Y. Mudimbe, and Jean O’Barr. Africa and the Disciplines: The Contribution of Research in Africa to the Social Sciences and Humanities. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. 139-166, but especially 139-143. ISBN: 9780226039015.

Helmreich, Stefan. "The Spiritual in Artificial Life: Recombining Science and Religion in a Computational Culture Medium." Science as Culture 6 (1997): 363-395.

7 Time

Kindred, all.

Buy at Amazon Dick, Philip K. "A Little Something for Us Tempunauts." In Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick. New York, NY: Random House, 2002, pp. 401-423. ISBN: 9780375421518.

Fabian, Johannes. "The Other Revisited: Critical Afterthoughts." Anthropological Theory (2006): 139-152.

8 Cyborgs and Cyberworlds

Neuromancer, all.

"Technology and Metaphor." In Science Fiction. pp. 146-180.

Buy at Amazon Gomez-Peña, Guillermo. "Ethno-Cyborgs and Genetically Engineered Mexicans," "The Virtual Barrio@The Other Frontier (or the Chicano Interneta)." In Dangerous Border Crossers: The Artist Talks Back. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000, pp. 45-57, 247-260. ISBN: 9780415182379.

Buy at Amazon Zizek, Slavoj. "The Matrix, Or The Two Sides of Perversion." In Rickman, Gregg. The Science Fiction Film Reader. Limelight Editions, 2004, pp. 406-428. ISBN: 9780879109943.

9 War, Childhood, and Initiation

Ender’s Game, all.

Buy at Amazon Honwana, Alcinda. "Recruitment and Initiation." In Child Soldiers in Africa. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007, pp. 49-74. ISBN: 9780812219876.

Buy at Amazon Gusterson, Hugh. "Becoming a Weapons Scientist." In People of the Bomb: Portraits of America’s Nuclear Complex. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004, pp. 3-20. ISBN: 9780816638604.

10 Gender, Generation/Reproduction, Sexuality, Kinship

The Left Hand of Darkness, all.

"Gender." In Science Fiction. pp. 91-117.

Buy at Amazon Gant-Britton, Lisbeth. "Exploring Color Coding at the Beginning and End of the Twentieth Century in Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness." In Into Darkness Peering: Race and Color in the Fantastic. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997, pp. 35-55. ISBN: 9780313300424.

11 Genesis, Eugenesis, Morphogenesis, Xenogenesis

Brave New World, all.

Dawn, all.

Buy at Amazon Haraway, Donna. "From Science Fiction, Fictions of Science." In Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Societies. New York, NY: Routledge, 1989, pp. 378-382. ISBN: 9780415902946.

Buy at Amazon Franklin, Sarah. "Sex." In Dolly Mixtures: The Remaking of Genealogy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007, pp. 19-45. ISBN: 9780822339205.

12 Presentations  

Supplemental Readings

Buy at Amazon Jameson, Fredric. "The Alien Body." In Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. New York, NY: Verso, 2005, pp. 119-141. ISBN: 9781844670338.

Stover, Leon E. "Anthropology and Science Fiction." Current Anthropology 14 (October 1973): 471-474.

Bloom, Julie. "Nigeria Says 'District 9' Is Not Welcome." New York Times, September 20, 2009.

Organ Transplant

Cohen, Lawrence. "Where It Hurts: Indian Material for an Ethics of Organ Transplantation." Daedalus 128 (Fall 1999): 135-165.

Sanal, Aslihan. "'Robin Hood' of Techno-Turkey or Organ Trafficking in the State of Ethical Beings." Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 28 (September 2004): 281-309.