Practicing Science Fiction: Critical Essays on Writing, Reading and Teaching the Genre

Drawn from the Science Fiction Research Association conference held in Lawrence, Kansas, in 2008, the essays in this volume address intersections among the reading, writing, and teaching of science fiction. Part 1 studies the teaching of SF, placing analytical and pedagogical research next to each other to reveal how SF can be both an object of study as well as a teaching tool for other disciplines. Part 2 examines SF as a genre of mediation between the sciences and the humanities, using close readings and analyses of the literary-scientific nexus. Part 3 examines SF in the media, using specific television programs, graphic novels, and films as examples of how SF successfully transcends the medium of transmission. Finally, Part 4 features close readings of SF texts by women, including Joanna Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Octavia E. Butler.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Preface      —KAREN HELLEKSON PART 1. TEACHING Introduction: Teaching with Science Fiction      —CRAIG B. JACOBSEN 1. Grokking Rhetoric through Science Fiction: A Practical Examination of Course Construction      —JEN GUNNELS 2. Incorporating Science Fiction into a Scientific Rhetoric Course      —MICHAEL J. KLEIN 3. Revealing Critical Theory’s Real-Life Potential to Our Students, the Digital Nomads      —JASON W. ELLIS PART 2. READING AND WRITING Introduction: Reading and Writing SF      —PATRICK B. SHARP 4. Reading/Writing Martians: Seeing Techne and Poiesis in The War of the Worlds      —CHARLES HARDING 5. The Creation of Heinlein’s “Solution Unsatisfactory”      —EDWARD WYSOCKI 6. Entropy, Entertainment, and Creative Energy in Ben Bova      —DONALD M. HASSLER PART 3. MEDIA Introduction: Media and Science Fiction      —KAREN HELLEKSON 7. Investigating the Postmodern Memory Crisis on the Small Screen      —SUSAN A. GEORGE 8. Text’s Resistance to Being Interpreted: Unconventional Relationship between Text and Reader in Watchmen      —HO-RIM SONG 9. “Breathe, baby, breathe!” Ecodystopia in Brazilian Science Fiction Film      —ALFREDO SUPPIA PART 4. WOMEN Introduction: Women and Writing      —LISA YASZEK 10. Hail the Conquering Campbellian S/Hero: Joanna Russ’s Alyx      —EILEEN DONALDSON 11. Essentialism and Constructionism in Octavia E. Butler’s Fledgling      —KRISTEN LILLVIS 12. Joanna Russ and the Murder of the Female Child: We Who Are About To...       —REBEKAH SHELDON 13. Learning to Listen, Listening to Learn: The Taoist Way in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Telling      —JAMES H. THRALL About the Contributors      Index     

About the Author :
Karen Hellekson is a freelance copy editor and independent scholar. She is coeditor of the open access journal Transformative Works and Cultures and of the quarterly SFRA Review. She lives in Maine. Craig B. Jacobsen teaches at Mesa Community College in Arizona. He is coeditor of the quarterly SFRA Review. Patrick B. Sharp is an associate professor at California State University, Los Angeles. He has written extensively on science fiction. Lisa Yaszek is associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her most recent work was on galactic suburbia.