This schedule is likely to change – always check the week before readings are due. Follow the links and read or watch assigned material before class unless otherwise stated.
Unit 1: Imagining Otherwise
Week 1
Tuesday 8/27: no class.
Post introductory blog entry and complete confidential questionnaire. (If you join class late, do these tasks immediately.)
Thursday 8/29
Introductory Imaginings
- Walidah Imarisha, “Introduction” to Octavia’s Brood (OB)
- Dani McClain, “Homing Instinct” (OB)
- adrienne maree brown, “The River” (OB)
Tuesday 9/3:
Week 2
Tuesday 9/3
Speculative Language
- Samuel R. Delany, “About 5,750 Words” (1978)
- Delany, “Aye, and Gomorrah“(1967).
- James Tiptree, Jr. “Love is the Plan the Plan is Death.” (1973)
- content notes: sexual and gendered violence
Thursday 9/5
Speculative Justice
- Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” (1973).
- N.K. Jemisin, “The Ones Who Stay and Fight.” (2018)
- P. H. Lee, “A House by the Sea” (2018).
- content notes: child abuse, institutional violence
Week 3
Tuesday 9/10
Practitioner Research
- In class film screening: Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin (2019)
Thursday 9/12
Practitioner presentations
Unit 2: After Capitalism?
Week 4
Anarchist Worldbuilding, Ambiguous Utopia 1
Tuesday 9/17
- Le Guin, The Dispossessed chapters 1-5
Thursday 9/19
- Le Guin, The Dispossessed chapters 6-8
Week 5
Anarchist Worldbuilding, Ambiguous Utopia 2
Tuesday 9/24
- Le Guin, The Dispossessed chapters 9-13
- adrienne maree brown, “Ursula Le Guin’s Fiction as Inspiration for Activism” (2016) (watch this video from 05.50 to 28.35 and/or read the transcribed remarks)
Thursday 9/26
- Delany, “To Read The Dispossessed” (1977)
- Le Guin, “The Shobies’ Story” (1993)
Week 6
Tuesday 10/1
Speculating on Gendered Power
- Joanna Russ, “When It Changed” (1972)
- James Tiptree, Jr., “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” (1976)
- Le Guin, “The Matter of Seggri” (1994)
- content note: gendered and sexual violence
Thursday 10/3
Exploring Speculative Form
- Anna Anthropy, Queers in Love at the End of the World (2013)
- Christine Hands, “Can Dance be Sci-Fi?” (2017)
- Saya Woolfalk, “What World Do You Want to Live In?” (2019)
Adaptation Due: Monday October 7
Unit 2: Confronting Realities
Week 7
Shaping Change with Octavia E. Butler 1
Tuesday 10/8
- Ayana Jamison and Moya Bailey, “Why Should You Read Sci-Fi Superstar Octavia Butler?”
- Octavia E. Butler, “Positive Obsession” (1989) and “The Book of Martha” (2003).
- N.K. Jemisin, Introduction to Parable of the Sower (2019; share or access course reserve copy if you have a different edition)
- Shelley Streeby, “Climate Refugees in the Greenhouse World: Archiving Global Warming with Octavia E. Butler” (2017)
Thursday 10/10
- Butler, Parable of the Sower chapters 1-5
- content note: vivid representations of interpersonal and institutional violence, including sexual and gendered violence
Week 8
Shaping Change with Octavia E. Butler 2
Tuesday 10/15
- Butler, Parable of the Sower chapters 6-20
- content note: vivid representations of interpersonal and institutional violence, including sexual and gendered violence
Thursday 10/17
- Butler, Parable of the Sower chapters 21-end
- Watch videos from the Parable of the Sower opera
- content note: vivid representations of interpersonal and institutional violence, including sexual and gendered violence
Week 9
Tuesday 20/22
- Ruha Benjamin, “But… There are New Suns!” (2017)
- adrienne maree brown, “Outro” (OB) and excerpts from Emergent Strategy (2017)
- Shelley Streeby, “Climate Change as a World Problem” (2017)
Thursday 10/24: no class
- Sleep Dealer (2008)
- “Science Fiction From Below: An Interview with Alex Rivera” (2008)
Application due: Monday 10/28
Unit 3: Rethinking History, Reimagining Futures
Week 10: Speculative bodies
Tuesday 10/29
- Charlie Jane Anders, “Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue” (2017)
- Bao Phi, “Revolution Shuffle” (OB)
- Walidah Imarisha, “Black Angel” (OB)
- content note: vivid representations of institutional, interpersonal, and medical violence, transphobia and racism
Thursday 10/31
- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, “Preface: Writing (with) a Movement from Bed” in Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice (2018)
- Piepza-Samarasinha, “Children Who Fly” (OB)
- Mia Mingus, “Hollow” (OB)
- content note: institututional violence, trauma, mental illness
Friday 11/1: Nominations due for week 13 texts
Week 11: Speculative Blackness
Tuesday 11/5
- Christina Sharpe, “The Wake” from In the Wake: On Blackness and Being (2016)
- This American Life, “We Are in the Future” (featuring clipping, “The Deep”)
- Derrick Bell, “The Space Traders” (1992).
- Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “Evidence” (OB)
- content note: institutional and racial violence
Thursday 11/7
- Listen to New Books Network interview with Rivers Solomon.
- Rivers Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts, Part I
- content note: vivid representations of institutional racial and gendered violence
Student-selected readings: final vote.
Week 12
Tuesday 11/12: Online Discussion (no class)
- Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts, Parts II and III
- content note: vivid representations of institutional racial and gendered violence
Thursday 11/14
- Solomon, An Unkindness of Ghosts, Part IV
- Solomon, “Black Girl Going Mad” (2017)
- content note: vivid representations of institutional racial and gendered violence
Visionary fiction due: Tuesday November 19
Week 13
Student-Selected Readings/Viewings
Tuesday 11/19
- Hortense Spillers, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book” (1987)
- Selections from Beloved (pp 100-108)
Thursday 11/21
- Dirty Computer
- “Get Out” (ELMS)
Week 14
Tuesday 11/26
- Worldbuilding Project: Preliminary Workshop
Bring one page of writing or a short piece of media that explains your project. Include the issues you hope to address, the format you are using, and 2-3 questions you will have to answer in your final project.
Thursday 11/28
- Thanksgiving: No Class
Week 15
Tuesday 12/3
- Worldbuilding Project Presentations
Thursday 12/5
- Worldbuilding Project Presentations.
Saturday December 14
Final Worldbuilding Projects, all late work, and Participation Self-Evaluations Due
