Course module - Futuristic Fictions

Code : ENGL32031
Credit rating: 20
Semester : 1

Aims

To consider the origins, significance, and effects of utopian and dystopian thinking as expressed through future-oriented literature from 1890 to the present (after first situating this literature in relation to classical and early modern utopias);

To perform textual analysis of diverse genres and styles of literature (and film) which share a number of common themes;

To analyse the treatment of key themes and topics in futuristic fictions, including questions of politics and social organisation, gender and sexuality, science and technology (including digital technologies, reproductive technologies and genetics), selfhood and community, family, law, justice, uniformity vs. diversity, and so on;

To consider questions of context, history and futurity in relation to the selected texts;

To develop students’ skills of written and verbal expression and their production of coherent arguments, at a level appropriate to work that will form part of the final assessment.

Objectives (Learning Outcomes)

By the end of this course, students should possess:

An effective understanding of the thematic, formal and stylistic diversity of futuristic fictions produced since 1890, along with a more general knowledge of the meanings and uses of ‘utopia’ in earlier texts;

An awareness of the historical and critical contexts in which futuristic fictions have been produced – and to which they speak – and an understanding of the complex relationships/negotiations between past, present and future in such texts;

An understanding of relevant questions of genre, for example in the consideration of utopias, dystopias, anti-utopias, feminist fiction, science fiction, cyberpunk, and post-apocalyptic narratives;

An ability to make use of relevant theoretical, literary critical, and political material (e.g. relating to socialism, feminism, queer theory, postmodern theory, cultural theories of digital technologies etc.) in their analysis of futuristic fiction;

An ability to analyse literary and other texts, and to construct and elaborate complex arguments through textual evidence, both in writing and in seminar discussions;
An ability to use relevant library resources, databases and search engines, to locate material for discussion and for assessment purposes;

Enhanced skills of written and verbal communication, analysis, and argument.

Assessment

One 3,000-word essay (50%); one 2-hour seen written examination (50%)

The use of dictionaries in the examination is prohibited. This rule applies to all categories of students, including all Visiting Students.

Information

THIS COURSE IS NOT AVAILABLE AS FREE CHOICE.

Course Content

‘Futuristic Fictions’ is a consideration of literary and filmic representations of the future, produced since 1890. The course will look at utopian and dystopian fictions, alongside theoretical and political writings on utopia, futurity, socialism, feminism, queer theory, technoculture, and literary genre.

The course opens with a consideration of two pre-/Early Modern utopias in order to give a sense of the history of utopian thinking, before proceeding to a more in-depth analysis of futuristic fictions – both utopian and dystopian – produced since 1890.

This analysis falls under a number of distinct headings: socialist utopias; feminist futures; dystopias; science and technology; and post-apocalyptic narratives. Throughout the course, we will consider the complex relationships between past, present and future in these texts, and the wider uses and meanings of ‘futurity’. We will also discuss themes and topics such as political and social organisation (government, law, justice, the family etc), gender and sexual identity, the construction of selfhood and community (self and other, the alien and the human), and the impact of scientific and technological advances on our imagining of the future.

In addition to the literary texts under consideration, you will read a range of theoretical writings on: the politics and aesthetics of utopia and dystopia; socialism; feminism; postmodernism and hyperreality; queer theory; the forms and motifs of science fiction; reproductive and genetic technologies; the relationship of science and literature; and the impact of digital technologies on both our imaginative engagement with possible futures and the material presentation of that engagement.

Texts marked with an asterisk will be given out in class, or will be available to download from the Blackboard page in advance of the class.

Week 1: Pre-/Early Modern Utopias
*Plato, Republic [extracts]
Thomas More, ‘Utopia’ (1516), in Three Early Modern Utopias (Oxford paperbacks, new edition, 2008)

Week 2: Socialist utopias I
William Morris, News from Nowhere (1890)
*William Morris, ‘Looking Backward’ [Commonweal, 12 June 1889] and ‘How I Became a Socialist’ [Justice, 16 July 1894], in News from Nowhere and Other Writings (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993), pp351-58 and pp377-83

Week 3: Socialist utopias II
H.G. Wells, A Modern Utopia (1905)
Week 4: Feminist futures I
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (1915)
*Anne K. Mellor, ‘On Feminist Utopias’, Women’s Studies 9 (1982): 241-62

Week 5: Dystopias I
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

Week 6: READING WEEK

Week 7: Dystopias II: Ecological catastrophes
J G Ballard, The Drowned World (1962)
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962) [extracts]

Week 8: Feminist futures II
Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time (1976)

Week 9: Science and technology I: cyberpunk
William Gibson, ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ and ‘Burning Chrome’, in Burning Chrome (1986)
Bladerunner [dir. Ridley Scott, 1982]

Week 10: Science and technology II: Queer futures
Jackie Stacey, ‘She Is Not Herself: The Deviant Relations of Alien Resurrection’, Screen 44.3 (2003): 251-76
Alien Resurrection [dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997]

Week 11: Post-apocalyptic narratives I
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2003)

Week 12: Post-apocalyptic narratives II
Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2007)

Course Materials

Tutor(s)

Mitchell, Dr Kaye

Timetable

PROVISIONAL TIMETABLE FOR 2013-2014

Lecture: Tuesday, 2.00-3.00
Seminars:
Group 1: Wednesday 11-1
Group 2: Thursday 10-12

Teaching Methods

One 1-hour lecture, plus one 2-hour seminar per week.

Preliminary reading

Essential reading:

Plato, Republic [extracts]
Thomas More, ‘Utopia’ in Three Early Modern Utopias (OUP, 2008)
William Morris, News from Nowhere (1890)
H.G. Wells, A Modern Utopia (1905)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (1915)
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)
Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time (1976)
William Gibson, ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ and ‘Burning Chrome’, in Burning Chrome (1986)
Bladerunner [dir. by Ridley Scott, 1982]
Jackie Stacey, ‘She Is Not Herself: The Deviant Relations of Alien Resurrection’, Screen 44.3 (2003): 251-76
Alien Resurrection [dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997]
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2003)
Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2007)
J G Ballard, The Drowned World (1962)

Keywords

List all modules

This website will look much better in a web browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.