Schedule

  January 21: Introduction
  January 23: Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, chapters 1-11
Fredric Jameson, from Postmodernism
  January 28:
Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, chapters 12-22
  January 29:
SCREENING: Blade Runner
  January 30: Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad, through "The Fifth Sally (A)"
Essays from Storming the Reality Studio:
Larry McCaffery, "Introduction: The Desert of the Real"
Brian McHale, "POSTcyberMODERNpunkISM"
  February 4:

Lem, The Cyberiad, through end
Lem response due
  February 5: SCREENING: Tron
  February 6: William Gibson, Neuromancer, chapters 1-10
Essays from Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative:
John Huntington, "Newness, Neuromancer, and the End of Narrative"
Lance Olsen, "Cyberpunk and the Crisis of Postmodernity"
Brooks Landon, "Not What It Used to Be: The Overloading of Memory in Digital Narrative"
  February 11:

Gibson, Neuromancer, chapters 11-coda
Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto"
Gibson response due
  February 12: SCREENING: Johnny Mnemonic
  February 13: Bruce Sterling, Schismatrix, prologue and part 1
Scott Bukatman, "Terminal Flesh"
  February 18:

Sterling, Schismatrix, parts 2 and 3
Mark Dery, "Cyborging the Body Politic: Obsolete Bodies and Posthuman Beings"
Sterling response due
  February 19: SCREENING: eXistenZ
  February 20: Neil Stephenson, Snow Crash, chapters 1-18
Scott Bukatman, "Terminal Penetration"
  February 25: Stephenson, Snow Crash, chapters 19-40
  February 26: SCREENING: The Matrix
  February 27:

Stephenson, Snow Crash, chapters 41-71
Stephenson response due
  March 4: Ursula K. Le Guin, Left Hand of Darkness, chapters 1-10
Phillip Brian Harper, from Framing the Margins: The Social Logic of Postmodern Culture
Judith Squires, "Fabulous Feminist Futures and the Lure of Cyberculture"
  March 5: SCREENING: Barbarella
  March 6: Le Guin, Left Hand of Darkness, chapters 11-20
Le Guin response due
  March 7: Midterm paper due no later than 4:00 pm
  March 11: Samuel Delany, Dhalgren, I-III
  March 12: SCREENING: Dark City
  March 13: Delany, Dhalgren, IV-V
  March 18-20: No class: spring break
  March 25:

Delany, Dhalgren, VI-VII
Delany response due
Term paper proposal due
  March 26: SCREENING: Brother from Another Planet
  March 27: Marge Piercy, He, She, and It, chapters 1-24
Robin Roberts, "Postmodernism and Feminist Science Fiction"
Sharon Stockton, " 'The Self Regained' "
  April 1: Piercy, He, She, and It, chapters 25-49
Piercy response due
  April 2: SCREENING: Terminator 2
  April 3: Octavia Butler, Lilith's Brood (a.k.a. Xenogenesis): Dawn
  April 8: Butler, Lilith's Brood: Adulthood Rites
Annotated bibliography due
  April 9: SCREENING: Aliens
  April 10: Butler, Lilith's Brood: Imago
Butler response due
  April 15: Haruki Murakami, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, chapters 1-20
  April 16: SCREENING: Donnie Darko
  April 17:

Murakami, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, chapters 21-40
Murakami response due
Term paper draft to peer reviewer
  April 22: Nicola Griffith, Slow River, chapters 1-13
Essays from Science-Fiction Studies, Queer Theory special issue:
Wendy Pearson, "Alien Cryptographies" and "Identifying the Alien"
Veronica Hollinger, "(Re)reading Queerly"
Ann Weinstone, "Science Fiction as a Young Person's First Queer Theory"
Commented drafts due back to author
  April 23: SCREENING: Tank Girl
  April 24: Griffith, Slow River, chapters 14-27
Griffith response due
  April 29: Nalo Hopkinson, Brown Girl in the Ring, prologue-chapter 5
  April 30: SCREENING: Blade
  May 1: Hopkinson, Brown Girl in the Ring, chapters 6-14
Hopkinson response due
  May 2: Term paper due no later than 4:00 pm
  May 6: Concluding thoughts