Required texts (at WVU bookstore)

Bear, Blood Music
Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Gibson, Burning Chrome
Huxley, Brave New World
Shelley, Frankenstein
Stoker, Dracula
Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau
Electronic Reserve [ER]
Web Sites
Films at the downtown library media center



Course Definition/
Science? Fiction? Is it possible to define science fiction? Is it a genre, an attitude toward reality, a kind of language use, or what? Perhaps more complex questions are necessary, taking science fiction and fantasy as probes for human imaging and construction. What is the relation between science fiction writing and techno-science (where today’s science is increasingly the adjunct of the technology industry)? How does science fiction help imagine / construct our future, and, in doing so, help imagine / construct our present? And what happens when science and technology seem to match or even outpace the imagination of science fiction, as seems to happen with contemporary biotech? In asking these questions, we will read novels and short stories, watch films, and visit web sites. The class will combine lecture, discussion, and small group work. Following an introductory discussion of the problem of defining science fiction, the schedule is broken into three units: Artificial Bodies, Alien Invasions, and Biotech Utopias. Each unit is organized historically, starting from a paradigmatic nineteenth century text: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and H. G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. Each unit also concerns different attitudes towards bodies: robo bodies, cyborg bodies, alien bodies, viral bodies, nano bodies, morph bodies, extimate bodies, etc. We will be concerned with the persistence and development of these themes up to the contemporary, including underlying issues of natural/artificial, self/other, human/alien, and so on; as well as the persistence of the nineteenth century in the scientific imaginary (witness the recent genre of “steampunk” science fiction novels set in the Victorian era). So, one eye on the nineteenth century and the other on the latest biotech. Long live the new flesh…



Course Goals/
Not simply to read and watch science fiction (but that too), the goal of the course is for students to gain a critical understanding of science fiction and fantasy as a historical genre and as cultural work; to think and write about science fiction and fantasy, with attention to its literariness and its cultural/historical function.

The Shortest Science Fiction Story
"The last man on earth sat in his room. There was a knock at the door."