ENGL 349 A: Science Fiction and Fantasy

ENGL 349: Queer(ing) Fantasy

Prof. Kate Norako

Contact: lknorako@uw.edu

Office Hours: Tuesdays 12:30-1:30 and by appointment (https://washington.zoom.us/j/99040626635)

Course Ethics: 

This course approaches our subject matter (queer contributions to and representations of queerness in the fantasy genre) with the understanding and acceptance of these fundamental facts: trans women are women, trans men are men, LGBTQIA2S+ rights are human rights, and queer folk have always existed and will always exist. The course will also require us to reckon with the impact of settler-colonialism, systemic racism, and misogyny and how fantasy authors choose to grapple with these heady matters in their imagined worlds. The work we will do in this course has never been more urgent, given the hundreds of anti-LGBTQIA laws that have been proposed/passed in the U.S. in 2024 alone, and given the ongoing attacks on immigrant, racial minority, women, and LGBTQIA2S+ rights by the current administration. In light of this, and out of a need to ensure that our classroom remains a place where the most marginalized among us are able to participate and learn, there will be no tolerance of anti-LGBTQIA bigotry, racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and/or misogyny masquerading as "devil's advocacy" in our class. 

Course Description: This class will focus on the ins and outs of historical fantasy world-building with a particular focus on intersectional LGBTQIA2S+ approaches. In our first week, students will be introduced to a wide array of fantasy authors as we examine how they choose to plunge their readers into their imagined worlds, and the remainder of class will focus on three particular texts (listed below). The major assignment for this course is a long-form writing assignment that requires consistent/daily writing and work on close-reading/analytic skills. Students will also complete a short final project and be asked to lead class discussion at least once. 

Required Texts:

I am hoping to have the full syllabus and course description up early next week, but in the meantime want to share the texts you are required to purchase prior to the start of the class (they're listed in the order we'll be reading them):

1. To Shape a Dragon's Breath, Moniquill Blackgoose

2. She Who Became the Sun, Shelley Parker-Chan

3. Spear, Nicola Griffith

You are welcome to purchase either a physical or digital copy and are of course welcome to read via audiobook as well, but you must have a printed copy available for our class meetings. 

Class Structure: 

This is a remote course, and we will meet M-Th synchronously on zoom from 9:40-11:50am. Because our class is driven by student interest, I do not record class meetings, so your active presence and engagement in our class meetings will be vital in order to pass this class. To that end, please ensure you are set up in a way that allows you to turn on your screen. I will explain why this class has a "screens on" policy on our first day together.  

Our class meeting times will be divided into roughly three sections. The first will be a 30 minute period of open reading/writing time to give folks a designated space to complete their pre-class tasks. From there we'll move into either a class-wide discussion (oftentimes with breakout sessions with specific tasks) or into student-led discussion. 

• Attendance: Given that our class will center student-led discussion, and given how important our discussions will be to your success on your final project, it’s essential that you come to every class meeting on time and prepared to discuss the day’s readings. 
• On Absences: 
  • absences due to illness are always excused, and I will never ask for a doctor's note. 
  • Do everything you can not to schedule work/extracurriculars/appointments etc during class time. I understand that sometimes these kinds of events are out of your control, but being absent from numerous classes will inevitably impact your grade because of how much you will miss. 
  • If you know you will be absent, let me know via email as soon as you can.
  • The answer to the question "Did I miss anything important?" will always be "Yes." 
  • It is always the student's responsibility to get themselves caught up on what we cover if they are absent, for whatever reason. I always recommend reaching out to a peer in your unit small group in advance to see if they would be willing to bring you up to speed. 
  • Note: I do not automatically lower grades based on attendance. However, I have taught college classes for twenty years now, and can safely say that the students who fare best are the ones who attend class regularly and come to class prepared. 

Grade Breakdown:

• Commonplace Book: 15% each week (75% total) 
• Reader Report/Discussion Leader: 10%
• Short Comparative Essay: 15%

Commonplace Book: A series of journal entries conducted prior to a given class, and weekly reflections on our in-class discussions, that follow a specific set of instructions found in the CP Book section in Assignments. One entry is due prior to each of our class meetings, and each week you need to write a reflection about our in-class discussions each Thursday at 5pm. Please see the Commonplace Book section in Assignments for detailed instructions. 

Reader Report/Discussion Leader: You will sign up to lead discussion once during the class (see the recent announcement to sign up). This will require you to read or listen to the additional text marked as "optional" for that day. You will then need to write a brief written report that provides a cogent overview of the major points of the piece and, critically, that provides some analysis/engagement with the work's offerings. You will complete this report prior to your chosen day, and will spend the first 30 minutes of class strategizing with your peers to figure out the best way to present your collective ideas and the major points of the article/podcast episode to the class. Lastly, you will each bring to this strategizing session a series of questions that you would like to offer to the class to lead discussion (these must be ones that students who have not read this optional text can still answer). 

Short Comparative Essay: This short essay, due at the end of Week 5, will allow students to put the skills they have honed in their Commonplace Book Essay to use in a more formal way. I will provide a full prompt by the end of Week 1, but the tldr is that this essay will require the following:

• a topic that includes a focused comparison of two fantasy works; this can be two of the three works we've read in this class, or one of the class texts and another of your choosing, such as:
  • the representation/use of medieval Mongol culture in Parker-Chan's She Who Became the Sun and either Maas' Tower of Dawn or Martin's Game of Thrones
  • the representation of sapphic love in Spear vs. She Who Became the Sun 
• a thesis statement that the ensuing paragraphs carefully support with nuanced comparative close-readings. The topic/point of comparison must be manageable in order to ensure the thesis is thoroughly supported. 
• a bibliography, if outside research is required 
• a conclusion that does more than simply repeat the assertions already made. 
• length: minimum 6 full double-spaced pages (10-12pt font), approx. 1500 words. 

Participation: The success of this class, of any humanities class really, hinges on the active engagement and intellectual curiosity of all in attendance. While I will lecture from time to time as needed to fill in knowledge gaps, the majority of our class meetings will be focused on and driven by student-led inquiry and interest. Your ideas, interests, questions, etc. will be what propels us forward. While I do not formally grade participation, it will be all but impossible to pass this class without actively engaging in each of our class meetings in some way. This does not, to reassure, merely include speaking up while on screen (though that's certainly encouraged!). Engagement can also take the form of commenting in the chat, participating actively in small groups/breakout rooms, and demonstrating careful attention and listening by way of your weekly commonplace book reflections. 

Attendance: Given the importance of student-led discussion, it’s imperative that all class members come to every class meeting on time and prepared to discuss the day’s readings. Failure to attend class regularly and/or to keep up with your pre-class commonplace book entries and/or readings will almost certainly result in a poor grade on your commonplace book, which is a significant portion of your final grade. 

Email and Office hours: If you have a question that can be answered in 1-2 sentences, send an email, and I will respond as soon as possible (if you email me over the weekend, expect a response no earlier than 9am on Monday). If your questions require a lengthy response, please bring them to me during office hours (12:30-1:30 on Tuesdays or by appointment). If you are reading this, you have found the fabled oeuf! To complete your quest, email me a picture of either a favorite animal, a favorite place, or a favorite bit of (SFW) fanart of a beloved work of fantasy. I commit to checking email and our Canvas page at least once a day on weekdays, and ask that all of you make the same commitment. With rare exception, I do not check email over the weekend, so if you have pressing questions that need to be addressed before the following week, make sure that you send them to me before noon on Friday.

How To Succeed In This Class:

1. Do the readings well in advance! And read deeply and carefully. If necessary, read once to sort out the plot, and read a second time to analyze. (Helpful hint: read a reliable plot summary before reading the text itself to help you along!)
2. Stay up to date on your commonplace book entries. These entries are designed to a) help you hone your close reading skills and b) help you participate as fully as possible in our class meetings and c) help you hone the skills you will need as you work on your short comparative essay. 
3. Follow assignment instructions carefully and do not, under any circumstances, use AI/LLMs or, as I prefer to call them, ERPGs (Environmentally Ruinous Plagiarism Generators). Technologies like Chat GPT can, at best, produce uncanny, bland descriptions of the texts we'll be reading this term. Bland and generalizing commonplace book entries receive low to zero credit. Remember, your assignments are supposed to reflect your growth and active labor to improve your interpretive and comparative analytic skills. It is impossible to demonstrate that growth across our class meetings and our assignments if you are letting an LLM do that work for you.  
4. Communicate with your professor! If you have questions or concerns (about meeting deadlines, managing the reading and writing load, how to research a given topic, what to say about a particular text, etc), get in touch! Office hours are perfect for longer conversations, but I am happy to talk briefly before/after class or (if the questions can be swiftly answered) via email.
5. Complete all major assignments on time, and pace yourself. Avoid writing your major assignments at the 11^th hour!
6. Come to class prepared and with all required materials. Be ready to discuss and think hard about the readings. And remember: there are many ways to earn full marks on participation.
7. Stay focused and engaged in class.  Have your screen on throughout class and participate actively in class discussions. Remember: there are many ways to participate, and that I value all of them. 
8. Stay Organized. In the very first week of class, write down all of your deadlines for all of your classes in a calendar. If you notice that, say, you have three major assignments due the same week, figure out what’s feasible, and ask your professors for what you need well in advance. You’re much more likely to have extension requests granted that way and/or are much more likely to do well on each of those assignments/exams.  
9. Write about what you care about and what genuinely piques your curiosity, because the more invested you are, the more enjoyable and worthwhile the writing and thinking will be, and (nearly always) the better the final written work.
10. Take Risks! Intellectual risk-taking is a necessity if you want to grow as a thinker, reader, and writer. Because its importance, I reserve the right to adjust students grades upwards if they demonstrate this kind of risk-taking. An essay, for instance, that struggles occasionally on the organizational or grammar/front (putting it in the B-range) will earn a higher grade than it otherwise would (likely resulting in it earning something in the A-/A range). 

Access and Accommodations:  It is very important to me that all students are able to thrive in this classroom environment. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please communicate your approved accommodations to me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your needs in this course.

If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), contact DRS at 206-543-8924 or uwdrs@uw.edu or disability.uw.edu. DRS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and/or temporary health conditions.  Reasonable accommodations are established through an interactive process between you, your instructor(s) and DRS. It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law.

On Plagiarism: 

• The Student Conduct Code defines plagiarism as follows
  • “Plagiarism, . . .  is the submission or presentation of someone else’s words, composition, research, or expressed ideas, whether published or unpublished, without attribution. Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

1. 1. 1. The use, by paraphrase or direct quotation, of the published or unpublished work of another person without full and clear acknowledgment; or
      2. The unacknowledged use of materials prepared by another person or acquired from an entity engaging in the selling of term papers or other academic materials.

• • If plagiarism is suspected, a student will be asked to meet with me, and the following general rules/procedures will apply:
    • For minor infractions (1-2 missing citations, failure to use quotation marks in 1-2 instances, clear evidence that plagiarism was accidental, etc):
    • Option either to revise and earn up to 75% for the assignment in question; or to abandon the assignment. Final grade will be an average of the rest of the assignments in the course.
    • Possible reporting of said student to the Dean’s Representative for Academic Conduct
  • For major infractions (i.e. numerous plagiarized passages, clear evidence that the essay was written by someone else and/or stolen or purchased wholesale)
    • Automatic zero for the assignment.
    • No option for revision of said assignment.
    • Automatic reporting of said student to the Dean’s Representative for Academic Conduct.

A note on AI: Using AI to complete your work in this class constitutes a form of plagiarism because it pulls from a wide array of previously written work and ideas to generate content for you. When you make use of these technologies, you also rob yourself of the opportunity to think for yourself and to hone your critical thinking, writing, and revision skills through the assignments for this class, and chronic use of AI to think and write for you has been proven, in a recent MIT study, to have  Added to which, and I can confirm this through prior teaching experiences over the past two years, students who use AI in this class get a poor grade, because AI cannot produce new ideas and nuanced close readings. It can, at best, regurgitate the ideas that it has been fed already. AI generated essays/write-ups are, in essence, used bandaid versions of original thought. Because of this, an essay or commonplace book produced through or reliant upon AI-generated content will typically end up with a D or low C at most. It is in your best interests, then, to produce your own work rather than rely on  to do that work for you (n.b. LibGen, the book pirating website that Meta used to train up its AI --discussed in that link to the Atlantic piece -- includes the books of many of your professors, including me, without our consent). 

A note on AI: Using AI to complete your work in this class constitutes a form of idea theft. It pulls from a wide array of previously written work and ideas to generate content for you. When you make use of these technologies, you effectively steal from untold numbers of published authors (e.g. LibGen, the book pirating website that Meta used to train up its AI contains the stolen books of many of your professors, my own book--the product of over a decade of careful thinking, writing, and research--included). You also, in using technologies like ChatGpt, rob yourself of the opportunity to hone your critical thinking, writing, and revision skills through the assignments for this class. Chronic use of AI to do one's thinking for oneself has been shown, in a recent MIT study, to have damaging effects on cognition. Added to which, and I can confirm this through prior teaching experiences over the past few years, students who use AI in this class struggle to earn passing grades because technologies like ChatGPT cannot produce new ideas and nuanced close readings. It can, at best, regurgitate the ideas that it has been fed already and produce inadequately bland readings of the texts we study. AI generated prose is, in essence, a used bandaid version of original thought. Because of this, an essay or commonplace book produced through or reliant upon AI-generated content will typically end up with a D+ at best. It is in your best interests, then, to produce your own work rather than rely on environmentally ruinous plagiarism generators to do that work for you. For an excellent critique of LLMs and their dangerous "enshittification" of art and knowledge production, see the following: https://jasonsanford.substack.com/p/ai-and-the-enshittification-of-life. 

On DACA: The University of Washington strives to provide a safe, secure, and welcoming environment that protects the privacy and human rights of everyone in our community. UW’s longstanding policies do not permit immigration officials to enter UW classrooms or residence halls without a court order, and I will not share any information about a student’s immigration status. For guidance regarding immigration status, please consult the following resource through Leadership Across Borders (http://depts.washington.edu/ecc/lwb/) (https://www.washington.edu/omad/files/2017/09/DACA-FAQ-Document.pdf). You can also email undocu@uw.edu with questions and concerns.

On Religious Accommodations: “Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/). Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/)

On Our Classroom Environment:

Here is the English Department’s Statement of Diversity: 

• The UW English Department aims to help students become more incisive thinkers, effective communicators, and imaginative writers by acknowledging that language and its use are powerful and hold the potential to empower individuals and communities; to provide the means to engage in meaningful conversation and collaboration across differences and with those with whom we disagree; and to offer methods for exploring, understanding, problem solving, and responding to the many pressing collective issues we face in our world--skills that align with and support the University of Washington’s mission to educate “a diverse student body to become responsible global citizens and future leaders through a challenging learning environment informed by cutting-edge scholarship.”
• As a department, we begin with the conviction that language and texts play crucial roles in the constitution of cultures and communities, past, present, and future.  Our disciplinary commitments to the study of language, literature, and culture require of us a willingness to engage openly and critically with questions of power and difference. As such, in our teaching, service, and scholarship we frequently initiate and encourage conversations about topics such as race, immigration, gender, sexuality, class, indigeneity, and colonialisms. These topics are fundamental to the inquiry we pursue.  We are proud of this fact, and we are committed to creating an environment in which our faculty and students can do so confidently and securely, knowing that they have the backing of the department.
• Towards that aim, we value the inherent dignity and uniqueness of individuals and communities. We acknowledge that our university is located on the shared lands and waters of the Coast Salish peoples. We aspire to be a place where human rights are respected and where any of us can seek support. This includes people of all ethnicities, faiths, gender identities, national and indigenous origins, political views, and citizenship status; nontheists; LGBQTIA+; those with disabilities; veterans; and anyone who has been targeted, abused, or disenfranchised.

Our classroom will, as a result, be radically inclusive, open to ideas, questions, and debates born out of genuine curiosity and rooted in a desire for knowledge, intellectual growth, and justice. It will be a space for rigorous and deep discourse, and it will be a space that actively opposes any and all racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, religious and nontheist discrimination, and misogyny.

Course Schedule:

Week 1: Fantasy Worldbuilding 101, Beginnings 

Week 2: To Shape a Dragon's Breath

Week 3: Finish To Shape a Dragon's Breath; Begin She Who Became the Sun

Week 4: She Who Became the Sun; Spear

Week 5: Finish Spear, N. K. Jemisin Worldbuilding workshop, Concluding Discussions.