Chiaroscuro Reading and Workshop Series

Margaret Atwood on why we need science fiction.

A polemical article by Peter Watts written for OnSpec Magazine that discusses the status of science fiction, particularly Margaret Atwood's perspective on the difference between science fiction and speculative fiction.

An article by Canada SF writer Robert J. Sawyer on the existence of a domestic Canadian SF market.

An article by Canadian SF writer Robert J. Sawyer that discusses the difference between Canadian and American science fiction, using the publication of two short stories as an example.

This book offers a first step toward spanning the gap between the writing of male critics of speculative fiction, who do not devote enough attention to the contributions of new female voices to this genre, and feminist critics, who should study a genre that opens all possibilities to women. Although Barr clarifies speculative texts for those who may not be familiar with them, her study is neither a complete survey of speculative fiction nor an introduction to the recent concerns of feminist theory; it applies contemporary feminist theory to contemporary speculative fiction.

An article by Adam Elkus and Crispin Burke for the Small Wars Journal which discusses the role of speculative fiction in assessing the relationship between futurist predictions and the development of modern warfare: "The chief danger of deep futurism, fictional or not, is that it often neglects history and extrapolates present conditions to the future. At worst, speculation can tie us to one powerful (and often times erroneous) image of the future. However, speculative fiction paired with the study of history and present experience can enable creative rethinking of present conditions in an allegorical context, getting around self-imposed conceptual barriers."

The novels of Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany provide a compelling critique of socio-economic slavery, but these novels also go beyond critique in order to describe positive, ethical forms of power and slavery. For Butler and Delany, erotic power exchange and consensual slavery stand as vibrant alternatives to the ethically bankrupt forms of non-consensual power. These two authors thus offer us a way to begin healing the wounds which non-consensual slavery has left upon our culture and its philosophy of ethics.

This article aims both to code and to decode, through the lens of queer theory, some of the "alien cryptographies" of science fiction. The figure of the alien, not surprisingly, is at the center of this (re)reading, which includes detailed analyses of two very different treatments of the alien/queer as the figure who moves invisibly through the territories of heteronormativity: John W. Campbell

This essay aims to construct strategic intersections between queer theory and feminist theory, in order to suggest how queer theory

This article by Ann Weinstone recounts the author's experience coming into contact for the first time with Queer Theory through the reading of speculative fiction.

An article by Wendy Pearson that responds to the feminist theories of Eve Sedgwick by turning to the way in which science fiction depicts the Other and the Alien.

Girls Who Bite Back contains cultural essays, fiction, comics and art by 34 contributors from across Canada and the U.S.

An article by James Gunn that discusses the peculiar language and protocols of science fiction, assessing on how they might determine the readability of the genre and its relationship to mainstream literature.

An article by James Gunn that discusses the history of the development of science fiction.

A fascinating article by James Gunn that discusses what it means to accumulate knowledge through libraries, drawing upon various examples from famous science fiction authors.

An article by James Gunn that attempts to characterize the genre of science fiction: "Certainly SF, like science itself, is based on the assumption that the universe is knowable even though the greatest part of it may be unknown and may be destined to remain mysterious for the life of any of us, or, indeed, the life of all of us, by which I mean the human species. The knowable universe has no room for the supernatural, or those experiences that by their very nature can never be "known." To bring experiences of the transcendent or the ineffable into the natural world is to destroy one or the other. Thus we have a basic distinction between fantasy and science fiction and even, though, it is not immediately apparent, between mainstream fiction and science fiction. "

An article by James Gunn that talks about how the discipline of English literature deals with the science fiction genre. It outlines approaches to topics that a university educator can approach: "The validity of the courses is not in question, but their nature may say something about the situation of SF teaching in 1995: in some ways science fiction still may be considered an intruder on the academic scene. In terms of numbers of courses or frequency of courses offered, SF surely outranks the other categories that shared its pulp-magazine origins

This site has information on Czernada's books and collections that are specifically designed for grade four science topics and for educators. Great stuff!

A great article from The Mumpsimus: Misplaced Thoughts on Displace Literatures: You can guess where the argument is going -- it's one made frequently on behalf of science fiction, the literature that supposedly conditions its readers to accept change and think about the future. This idea may be true, but it also promotes the idea of SF as little more than a disguised thought-experiment in sociology, an idea that may interest some people, but that doesn't hold much interest for me.

Bizarrely, an E-How article on how to go about teaching science fiction in high school: "Science fiction novels are taught to high school students in an narrow way, if at all. A few sci-fi books such as "Brave New World" and "1984" are labeled "speculative fiction" and included as honorary members of the canon because of their social commentary. The rest are either forgotten or taught in a science fiction elective class as an enjoyable, but not serious, form of imaginative writing. To be properly understood, science fiction stories need to be addressed both as imaginative works and as socially relevant writing."

Speculative fiction (primarily Science Fiction and Heroic Fantasy) has become one of the most popular genres of late twentieth century America. From Tolkien to LeGuin, Asimov to Russ, much of the appeal of this genre seems to rely upon its relation to the "real" feudal middle ages (Camelot, Light "Sabers," Jousts, etc.). In this class, we will (1) examine modern science fiction and heroic fantasy works (Gibson's Neuromancer, LeGuin's Earthsea series, and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings--yes, all thousand pages of it), in light of medieval heroic literature (Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,), (2) discuss the literary, political, and economic environment of the middle ages (more specifically England from about 900-1500), and (3) read a number of essays which attempt to theorize the social role of speculative fiction, especially its relation to issues of gender and the construction of "modern" myth, folklore, and fairy-tale.

This course will posit that speculative fiction represents one of the only still viable generic forms that deals with the present in an allegorical form. Starting from this premise, we will address a number of issues in contemporary culture through the fictions we will be reading and viewing on screen, specifically postmodernism, our contemporary carceral culture, politics and power, the Holocaust, and late capitalism. I will suggest, in other words, that speculative fiction gives us a special access to the ways we make sense of the world in our everyday lives. By pushing to the limits such issues as subjectivity, temporal sequentiality, and representation, speculative fiction can uncover the ways ideology, narrative, and epistemology function on a day-to-day basis. In short, as we progress through this semester we will be taking "science fiction" seriously and will consequently be dealing with a number of "serious" issues that concern us in our contemporary culture.

A curriculum in evolution.

From "proto-science fiction writers" of the renaissance and 18th century through the evolution of science fiction in the 19th century with Shelley, Poe, Cridge, Verne, Wells, etc. to the development of science fiction as a popular genre for readers and for writers in the early decades of the twentieth century to the explosion of science fiction from the 1950's to the present -- the course will examine science fiction writers' world views and critiques of human nature and society and their use of such scientific and pseudoscientific concepts as entropy, social Darwinism, quantum mechanics, genetic engineering, relativity, etc. Use will be made of novels, short stories from around the world, films, radio drama, and related materials. The course will be concerned with a series of recurrent themes: Future Visions (Utopias/Dystopias/Heterotopias); Creation/Transformation/Sentience; Time; Space; Social Issues: Gender/Race/Age/Disability/Species; Ocean; and Math/Dimensions/Computers/Cyberspace.

This syllabus provides a selections of readings that demonstrate the impact of developments in science and biology on the writings of a number of authors, historical and modern.

This research seminar is focused on the interactions between experimental medicine and experimental biology in Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States during the period 1860-1940. Through the reading of primary and secondary sources (including science fiction), it will explore the interplay of ideas, institutions, and practices of experimental biology and experimental medicine with contemporary political, ideological, cultural, and social developments. It will analyze the emergence of such experimental techniques as organ and tissue transplants, reanimation, the perfusion of isolated organs, tissue cultures, blood transfusions, and organotherapies. The seminar will examine how diverse biomedical fields, including pharmacology, endocrinology, histology, gerontology, human genetics, hematology, and immunology, were animated by the discussions of death and immortality.

Science fiction extrapolates the trends of the present to imagine possible future worlds, both utopian and (more often) dystopian. Fantasy looks back to imagine past worlds in which technology has not yet usurped nature. Both genres push beyond the shackles of realism to reach for deeper truths. This class will examine the genres of science fiction and fantasy across multiple media. We