Schedule of readings:
Assigned readings should be completed before the scheduled date. Most assigned readings not included in the books ordered for the class are available as pdf files on the “Files” page of the Canvas site for the class (see the left margin of the Canvas front page for the “Files” link). Alternately, some short works are available online, at the links in the schedule of readings below. Suggested readings are not required but are instead provided as extra reading on topics that will be touched on in class; I will usually refer to those readings, but I will not assume that students have already read the suggested works.
Week 1.
Jan. 4: Introduction to the course: SF of the present moment
Sofia Samatar, “The Red Thread”
Tochi Onyebuchi, “How to Pay Reparations: A Documentary”
MKRNYILGLD, “The CRISPR Cookbook: A Guide to Biohacking Your Own Abortion in a Post-Roe World”
Joy Sanchez-Taylor, “’An Image of the Future’”
Ida Yoshinaga, “Science Fiction Studies 3.0: Re-networking our Hive Mind”
Suggested: Kodwo Eshun, “Further Considerations on Afrofuturism,” available online at https://muse.jhu.edu/article/48294
Week 2.
Jan. 9: Critical debates and speculative aesthetics
Darko Suvin, chapters 1 and 4 from Metamorphoses of Science Fiction
John Rieder, “Science Fiction and the Mass Cultural Genre System”
Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, “Science Fiction and This Moment”
Mark Jerng, “Racial Worldmaking”
Suggested: John Rieder, “Periodizing SF”
Suggested: Samuel R. Delany, “About 5,750 Words”
Jan. 11: Estrangements, transgressions, limits, alterity
Ted Chiang, “The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Fiction”
Drew Hayden Taylor, “I Am . . . Am I”
S.L. Huang, “Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness”
Steven Shaviro, “Thinking Like a Philosopher”
Suggested: Rachel Swirsky, “Eros, Philia, Agape”
Suggested; N. Katherine Hayles, “Prologue: Transforming How We See the World” and “Nonconscious Cognitions: Humans and Others,” from Unthought
Week 3
Jan. 16: Asian science fiction
Ken Liu, from The Hidden Girl: “Ghost Days,” “Staying Behind,” and “Seven Birthdays”
Aliette de Bodard, “The Universe of Xuya,” available online at https://www.aliettedebodard.com/bibliography/novels/the-universe-of-xuya/
Aliette de Bodard, “Immersion,” available online at https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/debodard_06_12/
Aliette de Bodard, “The Waiting Stars,” available online at https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/debodard_06_17_reprint/
Suggested: Anil Menon, “Archipelago”
Suggested: Michelle N. Huang, “The Posthuman Subject In/Of Asian American Literature,” available online at
Huang's essay can also be found at this link, through the UW library: https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780190699628.001.0001/acref-9780190699628-e-921?rskey=P4L9mI&result=89
Suggested: N. Katherine Hayles, “Toward Embodied Virtuality,” chapter 1 in How We Became Posthuman
Jan. 18: Climate fiction and solarpunk: Dystopian and utopian thinking
Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future
Mark Fisher, “It’s Easier to Imagine the End of the World than the End of Capitalism,” chapter 1 in Capitalist Realism
Eugene Thacker, “Clouds of Unknowing,” introduction to The Horror of Philosophy Vol. 1
Suggested: Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” available online at https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/596640
Week 4.
Jan. 23: Robinson, The Ministry for the Future
Suggested: Fabio Fernandes, “Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140 (2017)/Logistic Utopia”
Suggested: Ernst Bloch, excerpt from “Anticipatory Consciousness” in The Principle of Hope
Suggested: Fredric Jameson, “Varieties of the Utopian,” from Archeologies of Desire
Jan. 25: Robinson, The Ministry for the Future
Suggested: Debbie Urbanski, “An Incomplete Timeline of What We Tried,” available online at https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwvgeq/an-incomplete-timeline-of-what-we-tried
Suggested.: Malka Older, “Sturdy Lantern and Ladders”
Suggested: Vandana Singh, “Indra’s Web”
Suggested: Octavia Cade, “The History of a Coral Future”
Week 5
Jan. 30: Posthumanism and network societies: Far futures
Benjamin Rosenbaum, The Unraveling
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, excerpt from The Epistemology of the Closet
Suggested: H.G. Wells, “The Limits of Individual Plasticity”
Suggested: Rosenbaum, “The Guy Who Worked for Money,” available online at available online at https://www.shareable.net/the-guy-who-worked-for-money/
Suggested: Benjamin Rosenbaum, “A Tale of a Tale of a Shareable Future,” available online at https://www.shareable.net/a-tale-of-a-tale-of-a-shareable-future-part-1-introduction/
Feb. 1: Rosenbaum, The Unraveling
Suggested: N. Katherine Hayles, “What Does It Mean to Be Posthuman?,” conclusion to How We Became Posthuman
Week 6
Feb. 6: Rosenbaum, The Unraveling
Suggested: Raphael Carter/Cameron Reed, “Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation by K.N. Sirsi and Sandra Botkin”
Suggested: Sherryl Vint, “Speculative Fiction,” in Vint, ed., After the Human
Feb. 8: Indigenous futurisms and decolonial alternatives
Moniquill Blackgoose, To Shape a Dragon’s Breath
Moniquill Blackgoose, “Musing about Native Steampunk,” available online at https://moniquill.tumblr.com/post/14393053317/musing-about-native-steampunk
Week 7
Feb. 13: Blackgoose, To Shape a Dragon’s Breath
Grace Dillon, “Imagining Indigenous Futurisms”
Suggested: Farah Mendelsohn, “Introduction” to Rhetorics of Fantasy
Feb. 15: Blackgoose, To Shape a Dragon’s Breath
Suggested: Grace Dillon, “Indigenous Scientific Literacies in Nalo Hopkinson’s Ceremonial Worlds”
Suggested: Mark Rifkin, “Introduction” to Between Land and Flesh
Week 8
Feb. 20: Stephen Graham Jones and Davide Gianfelice, Earthdivers, Vol. 1: Kill Columbus
Suggested: Bryan Kamaoli Kuwadu, “Na Kia’l Mauna, Ka Pu’uhonua o Pu’uhuluhulu at the Mauna Kea Access Road (2019)/An SF Sovereignty Story”
Feb. 22: Black speculative fiction
Victor Lavalle, The Ballad of Black Tom
Victor Lavalle, “Up From Slavery”
Suggested: Veronica Schanoes, “Variations on Lovecraftian Themes” (pdf)
Suggested: Violet Allen, “The Venus Effect,” available online at https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-venus-effect/
Week 9.
Feb. 27: Nnedi Okorafor and Tana Ford, LaGuardia
Zakkiyah Iman Jackson, “On Becoming Human: An Introduction”
Suggested: Mark Minch-de Leon, “Race and the Limitations of ‘the Human’”
Suggested: Ramzi Fawaz, “Introduction” to The New Mutants
Feb. 29: Latinx speculative fiction
Rosaura Sanchez and Beatrice Pita, Lunar Braceros: 2125-2148
Lysa Rivera, “Rosaura Sanchez and Beatrice Pita, Lunar Braceros: 2125-2148 (2009)/Imagination Against Resistance”
Suggested: Lysa Rivera, “Future Histories and Cyborg Labor: Reading Borderlands SF After Nafta,” available online at https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5621/sciefictstud.39.3.0415
Suggested: Gomez-Pena, “The New World Border”
Suggested: Alex Rivera, “Why Cybraceros?,” available online at http://alexrivera.com/2022/01/02/why-cybraceros/
Week 10.
March 5: Worldbuilding and geopolitics: The future of Israel/Palestine
Lavie Tidhar, Central Station, selections: "Prologue" and chapters 1-3 (pages 1-52); chapter 6 (pages 99-112); and chapters 12-13 (pages 238-267)
Emad El-Din Aysha, “Digital Nation,” from Palestine + 100
Suggested: Omri Boehm, “Introduction” to Haifa Republic: A Democratic Future for Israel
March 7: Displacements of race and disability
Martha Wells, All Systems Red
Suggested: Vina Jie-Min Prasad, “Fandom for Robots,” available online at https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/fandom-for-robots/
Suggested: Sami Schalk, “Introduction” to Bodyminds Reimagined
March 13: Final papers or bibliographies due, by email to tfoster@uw.edu