ENGL 494 A: Honors Seminar

Schedule of readings:

All stories and essays not included in the books ordered for the class are available on the Canvas site for the course, in the form of pdf files.  Any assignment below that was not a book ordered for the class or available online at a link given in the schedule below can be found on the Canvas site, on the “Files” page, listed alphabetically under the author’s last name.   Suggested readings are not required; I will not assume you have read the suggested materials, but will refer to them in class. They are included primarily for students who are especially interested in the topic of the day’s class.

Week 1.

September 25: Introduction

Week 2.

September 30: Lyman Tower Sargent, “Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited,” available online through the UW Library site (see https://www-jstor-org.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/stable/20719246?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents; please note that you will need to use your UW Netid to access this essay)

                                  Ursula LeGuin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”

                                  N.K. Jemisin, “The Ones Who Stay and Fight”

                                  Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “A Woman’s Utopia,” in Daring to Dream: Utopian Fiction by United States Women Before 1950, ed. Carol Farley Kessler

                                  Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein, “Sultana’s Dream,” in The Utopia Reader, 2^nd ed., Gregory Claeys and Lyman  Tower Sargent, eds.

October 2: Darko Suvin, “Defining the Literary Genre of Utopia,” chapter 3 in Metamorphoses of Science Fiction

                          Sofia Samatar, “The Red Thread,” available on the "Files" page, but also available online at http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-red-thread/

                          Judith Merril, “That Only a Mother”

                          Joanna Russ, “When It Changed”

                          Ray Bradbury, “Way Up in the Middle of the Air”

Suggested only: Fredric Jameson, “Varieties of the Utopian,” chapter 1 in Archeologies of the Future

Suggested only: Frances Bartkowski, “Introduction” to Feminist Utopias,

Week 3.

October 7: Darko Suvin, “Estrangement and Cognition,” chapter 1 of Metamorphoses of Science Fiction

                          Ted Chiang, “Liking What You See: A Documentary”

                          Bruce Sterling, “Maneki Neko”

                          Benjamin Rosenbaum, “The Guy Who Worked for Money,” available online at http://www.shareable.net/blog/the-guy-who-worked-for-money

                          Rachel Swirsky, “Eros, Philia, Agape”

Suggested only: Suvin, “SF and the Novum,” chapter 4 of Metamorphoses of Science Fiction

October 9: Begin Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000-1887

                         William Morris’s review of Bellamy and Bellamy’s review of Morris’s News From Nowhere, in The Utopia Reader, 2^nd ed., Gregory Claeys and Lyman  Tower Sargent, eds., pages 315-320 and 339-340

Week 4.

October 14: Finish Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000-1887

Suggested only: Lynne Segal, “Inventing Utopias,” chapter 6 in Radical Happiness

Suggested only: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland, chapter 5

October 16: Begin Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed

Week 5.

October 21: Continue LeGuin, The Dispossessed

                             Tom Moylan, “The Literary Utopia,” chapter 3 in Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian  Imagination

October 23: Finish LeGuin, The Dispossessed

Week 6.

October 28: Begin Samuel R. Delany, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

Suggested only, Robin D.G. Kelley, “’When History Sleeps’” and “’When History Awakes,” introduction and conclustion to Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

October 30: Continue Delany, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

Due Date: By 5 p.m., Friday, November 1, submit your final paper topics

Week 7.

November 4: Finish Delany, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

November 6: Begin Nisi Shawl, Everfair

Week 8.

November 11: No class; Veteran’s Day        

November 13: Finish Shawl, Everfair

Suggested only: Avery Gordon, “Something More Powerful Than Skepticism,” chapter 25 in Keeping Good Time

Due date: By 5 p.m., Friday, November 15, turn in final paper proposals, with annotated bibliography of outside sources

Week 9.

November 18: Begin Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

                                  Tom Moylan, “The Critical Dystopia”

November 20: Finish Butler, Parable of the Sower

Week 10.

November 25: Begin Cory Doctorow, Walkaway

November 27: No class; Thanksgiving holiday

Week 11.

December 2: Continue Doctorow, Walkaway

Suggested only: Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams, chapter 6, in Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work

December 4: Finish Doctorow, Walkway

Due date: Final papers due, by 5 p.m., Wednesday, December 11