everything.study
21A.270

Anthropology Through Speculative Fiction

Undergraduate · Historical course

Fall 2009

Topics

  • Introduction: Possible Worlds
  • Techniques of Othering
  • First Contact
  • Vampires!
  • Religion
  • Time
  • War, Childhood, and Initiation
  • Gender, Generation/Reproduction, Sexuality, Kinship
  • Genesis, Eugenesis, Morphogenesis, Xenogenesis
  • Presentations

Readings

  • “Defining Science Fiction.” In Science Fiction . pp. 1-36.
    Listed reading
  • Le Guin, Ursula K. “Do-It-Yourself Cosmology.” In The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction . New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1993, pp. 118-122. ISBN: 9780060924126.
    Listed reading
  • Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan, Jr. “Science Fiction and This Moment.” In The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction . Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008, pp. 1-12. ISBN: 9780819568892.
    Listed reading
  • Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials , all.
    Listed reading
  • “Race and Star Trek .” In Science Fiction . pp. 127-132.
    Listed reading
  • Said, Edward. “Knowing the Oriental.” In Orientalism . New York, NY: Vintage, 1979, pp. 31-49. ISBN: 9780394740676.
    Listed reading
  • Adare, Sierra S. “Introduction,” “Future ‘Indians’,” “Past Stereotypes.” In “Indian” Stereotypes in TV Science Fiction: First Nations’ Voices Speak Out . Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2005, pp. 1-9, 29-31 and 37-41. ISBN: 9780292706125.
    Listed reading
  • Delany, Samuel R. “Racism and Science Fiction.” In Thomas, Sheree R. Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora . New York, NY: Warner, 2000, pp. 381-397. ISBN: 9780446525831.
    Listed reading
  • Sofia, Zoe. “Aliens ‘R’ U.S.: American Science Fiction Viewed from Down Under.” In Slusser, George E., and Eric S. Rabkin. Aliens: The Anthropology of Science Fiction . Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987, pp. 128-141. ISBN: 9780809313754.
    Listed reading
  • Sobchack, Vivian. “The Alien,” “Embracing the Alien, Erasing Alienation.” In Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997, pp. 89-106 and 292-299. ISBN: 9780813524924.
    Listed reading
  • The Sparrow , all.
    Listed reading
  • Fabian, Johannes. “Living and Dying,” “Communicating and Commanding.” In Out of Our Minds: Reason and Madness in the Exploration of Central Africa . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000, pp. 52-77 and 129-150. ISBN: 9780520221239.
    Listed reading
  • Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. “Anthropology and the Savage Slot: The Poetics and Politics of Otherness.” In Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World . New York, NY: Palgrave, 2003, pp. 7-28. ISBN: 9780312295219.
    Listed reading
  • Brown Girl in the Ring , all.
    Listed reading
  • Nelson, Alondra. “‘Making the Impossible Possible’: An Interview with Nalo Hopkinson.” Social Text 71 (2002): 97-114.
    Listed reading
  • James, Erica. “Haunting Ghosts: Madness, Gender, and Ensekirite in Haiti in the Democratic Era.” In DelVecchio Good, Mary-Jo, Sandra Hyde, Sarah Pinto, and Byron Good. Postcolonial Disorders . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008, pp. 132-156. ISBN: 9780520252240.
    Listed reading
  • Eglash, Ron. “Race, Sex, and Nerds: From Black Geeks to Asian American Hipsters.” Social Text 71 (2002): 49-64.
    Listed reading
  • Saunders, Charles R. “Why Blacks Should Read (and Write) Science Fiction.” In Thomas, Sheree R. Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora . New York, NY: Warner, 2000, pp. 398-404. ISBN: 9780446525831.
    Listed reading
  • Williams, Ben. “Black Secret Technology: Detroit Techno and the Information Age.” In Nelson, Alondra, Thuy Linh N. Tu, and Alicia Hedlam Hines. Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life . New York, NY: New York University Press, 2001, pp. 154-176. ISBN: 9780814736043.
    Listed reading
  • Fledgling , all.
    Listed reading
  • Stetson, George R. “The Animistic Vampire in New England.” American Anthropologist 9 (1896): 1-13.
    Listed reading
  • White, Luise. “Vampire Priests of Central Africa: Debates about Labor and Religions in Colonial Northern Zambia.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 35 (1993): 746-772.
    Listed reading
  • Haraway, Donna. In Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouse™: Feminism and Technoscience . New York, NY: Routledge, 1997, pp. 214-217. ISBN: 9780415912457.
    Listed reading
  • Cat’s Cradle , all.
    Listed reading
  • Geertz, Clifford. “Religion as a Cultural System.” In The Interpretation of Cultures . New York, NY: Basic Books, 1973, pp. 87-125. ISBN: 9780465097197.
    Listed reading
  • Blier, Suzanne Preston. “Truth and Seeing: Magic, Custom, and Fetish in Art History.” In Bates, Robert H., V.Y. Mudimbe, and Jean O’Barr. Africa and the Disciplines: The Contribution of Research in Africa to the Social Sciences and Humanities . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. 139-166, but especially 139-143. ISBN: 9780226039015.
    Listed reading
  • Helmreich, Stefan. “The Spiritual in Artificial Life: Recombining Science and Religion in a Computational Culture Medium.” Science as Culture 6 (1997): 363-395.
    Listed reading
  • Kindred , all.
    Listed reading
  • Dick, Philip K. “A Little Something for Us Tempunauts.” In Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick . New York, NY: Random House, 2002, pp. 401-423. ISBN: 9780375421518.
    Listed reading
  • Fabian, Johannes. “The Other Revisited: Critical Afterthoughts.” Anthropological Theory (2006): 139-152.
    Listed reading
  • Neuromancer , all.
    Listed reading
  • “Technology and Metaphor.” In Science Fiction . pp. 146-180.
    Listed reading
  • Gomez-Peña, Guillermo. “Ethno-Cyborgs and Genetically Engineered Mexicans,” “The Virtual Barrio@The Other Frontier (or the Chicano Interneta).” In Dangerous Border Crossers: The Artist Talks Back . New York, NY: Routledge, 2000, pp. 45-57, 247-260. ISBN: 9780415182379.
    Listed reading
  • Zizek, Slavoj. “The Matrix, Or The Two Sides of Perversion.” In Rickman, Gregg. The Science Fiction Film Reader . Limelight Editions, 2004, pp. 406-428. ISBN: 9780879109943.
    Listed reading
  • Ender’s Game , all.
    Listed reading
  • Honwana, Alcinda. “Recruitment and Initiation.” In Child Soldiers in Africa . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007, pp. 49-74. ISBN: 9780812219876.
    Listed reading
  • Gusterson, Hugh. “Becoming a Weapons Scientist.” In People of the Bomb: Portraits of America’s Nuclear Complex . Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004, pp. 3-20. ISBN: 9780816638604.
    Listed reading
  • The Left Hand of Darkness , all.
    Listed reading
  • “Gender.” In Science Fiction . pp. 91-117.
    Listed reading
  • Gant-Britton, Lisbeth. “Exploring Color Coding at the Beginning and End of the Twentieth Century in Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness .” In Into Darkness Peering: Race and Color in the Fantastic . Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997, pp. 35-55. ISBN: 9780313300424.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Haraway, Donna. “From Science Fiction, Fictions of Science.” In Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Societies . New York, NY: Routledge, 1989, pp. 378-382. ISBN: 9780415902946.
    Listed reading
  • Franklin, Sarah. “Sex.” In Dolly Mixtures: The Remaking of Genealogy . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007, pp. 19-45. ISBN: 9780822339205.
    Listed reading
  • WEEK #: 12 · TOPICS: Presentations · READINGS: No readings
    Reading assignment
  • Jameson, Fredric. “The Alien Body.” In Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions . New York, NY: Verso, 2005, pp. 119-141. ISBN: 9781844670338.
    Listed reading
  • Stover, Leon E. “Anthropology and Science Fiction.” Current Anthropology 14 (October 1973): 471-474.
    Listed reading
  • Listed reading
  • Cohen, Lawrence. “Where It Hurts: Indian Material for an Ethics of Organ Transplantation.” Daedalus 128 (Fall 1999): 135-165.
    Listed reading
  • Sanal, Aslihan. “‘Robin Hood’ of Techno-Turkey or Organ Trafficking in the State of Ethical Beings.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 28 (September 2004): 281-309.
    Listed reading
  • Roberts, Adam. Science Fiction . New York, NY: Routledge, 2000. ISBN: 9780415192057.
    Required
  • Barlowe, Wayne Douglas, Ian Summers, and Beth Meacham. Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials . New York, NY: Workman, 1987. ISBN: 9780894803246.
    Required
  • Russell, Mary Doria. The Sparrow . New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1997. ISBN: 9780449912553.
    Required
  • Hopkinson, Nalo. Brown Girl in the Ring . New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing, 1998. ISBN: 9780446674331.
    Required
  • Butler, Octavia. Fledgling . New York, NY: Seven Stories Press, 2005. ISBN: 9781583226902.
    Required
  • Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat’s Cradle . New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1963.
    Required
  • Butler, Octavia. Kindred . Boston, MA: Beacon, 2004. ISBN: 9780807083697.
    Required
  • Gibson, William. Neuromancer . New York, NY: Ace, 1984. ISBN: 9780441569595.
    Required
  • Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game . New York, NY: Tor, 1991. ISBN: 9780812550702.
    Required
  • Le Guin, Ursula. The Left Hand of Darkness . New York, NY: Ace, 1969.
    Required
  • Required
  • Butler, Octavia. Dawn . New York, NY: Warner, 1987. ISBN: 9780445205161. [Currently available in Lilith’s Brood . New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing, 2000. ISBN: 9780446676106.]
    Required
Sources