Academic Bulletin English - 2009-10 - 497 ENG 497

This is a senior-level seminar in one of the most prolific of modern literacy genres. As befitting its topic, the seminar will require not only traditional textual analysis, but will also explore futuristic technological structures. In the first part of the course, we will read several novels by two important S-F authors, Phillip K. Dick, and William Gibson, as well as a number of critical approaches to their work. In the second part of the course, each student will select a well-known science fiction author as the subject of an intensive critical study, taking the form of an article modeled after publications in Science Fiction Studies—the premier academic journal in this field. In the final part of the course, students will develop a more technological form of their critical study, such as a video, web site, or PowerPoint. This will be presented during our regularly-scheduled final exam.