ELL3008S 2007

The science fiction genre is concerned, among other things, with society, technology and human identity in the face of shifting cultural norms. As such, the genre offers a particularly apposite response to a postmodern age. This course will look at various science fiction texts which include feminist sci fi, cyberpunk and space opera, and will attempt to site them as either postmodern texts or texts which respond to a postmodern awareness of society, identity and narrative.

Course Requirements

You are required to attend at least 75% of tuts; if you are going to be absent, please e-mail or sms me in advance to excuse yourself. I reserve the right to mark you absent and ask you to leave the class if you have not done the necessary preparation set for any tutorial.

In addition to attendance, you are required to write three short exercises and two long essays. I will follow standard English dept. procedure in taking 10% off your essay mark for work submitted up to a week late; essays handed in more than a week after deadline will be accepted for DP purposes, but will receive a mark of 0. Exercises cannot be handed in late, as we'll discuss the readings in detail in class, and there's no real point in you writing the exercise after that.

This seminar has a DP requirement. If you have not submitted all the required work or have attended too few of the seminars without good reason, I may give you an overall DPR symbol for the course, which means you will receive a mark of 0, not an average of the work you have actually done. This means you will fail ELL3008S as a whole.

Mark Breakdown

Essay 1 = one-third of final mark
Essay 2 = one-third of final mark
Average of exercise marks = one-third of final mark.

Essays

The two essays required for this course should be around 1800 words long.
Essays are either a week or two weeks after the last tutorial on that particular section of the course (see course outline). You will write essays on two out of the four sections of the course, one from the first two sections, and one from the second two (i.e. one on either general SF or space opera, and one on either cyberpunk or feminist sf).
Please note that essays should focus on the novels while the short exercises focus on the short stories. Short stories may be referenced for comparison in the full-length essays, but may not be the focus of analysis. (This obviously doesn't apply to the first section, which is all short stories).
Essay topics are available here.

Short Exercises

In addition to the two essays, you are required to write three short pieces of work (around 700 words) dealing with specific critical readings, and applying them to the short fiction from the section.

I have found it useful to require students to write these, as a way of coming to grips with theoretical concepts. You are asked to address particular aspects of the reading’s argument, and are not expected to do additional research. This is more of an extended comprehension than an actual essay.

All three short exercises must be submitted. See topics page for details. Please note that I cannot grant extensions on these.

Extensions

I don’t usually mind granting essay extensions if you have a good reason for requesting one, and if you do so IN ADVANCE. I respond really, really badly to requests for extensions on the actual day of the deadline, unless you have a sudden medical or other emergency and can supply a medical certificate.
Please also note that I CANNOT grant extensions on the short exercises, as we discuss the material in class on the hand-in day; the only exception to this rule is if you are ill on the hand-in day and absent from class, but I require a doctor's note, please.

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