Science Fiction and American Culture » November 1: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Part I)

November 1: Octavia Butler’s Dawn (Part I)

I’ve moved the due date for Essay #2 back to next Friday (11/17).

Plan for the Day

Before moving along, I want to ask a question. What was the first technology invented?

Essay #1 Review

I finally got those essays graded. When you see your grade, remember that this is a 3000-level class. I’d have different expectations for 1000-, 2000-, and 4000-level classes. The main thing to take away is that you need to define a doable topic for the page count I’m asking you to do. Aim to be more thorough on a smaller topic than to scratch the surface of many topics. The feedback below doesn’t apply to every essay, but I saw the following areas to be prevalent:

  • Explain the significance of your argument.
    • Don’t just list a bunch of observations about a text, technology, or American culture.
    • Why are you analyzing the topic?
    • Be able to explain your argument, and consider a “so what” question.
  • Don’t summarize.
  • Don’t drop in quotations and expect the reader to know what you mean.
  • Don’t summarize.
  • Aim for reader-based prose and not writer-based prose.
  • Don’t summarize.
  • Scrutinize all your assertions: don’t just state something without proof or sound reasoning.
  • Don’t summarize.
  • Be careful attributing cause and effect or authorial motivation to your arguments.
    • Authors don’t set out to be sexist, unartful, and heteronormative, but sometimes their writing reflects those values.
    • Remember, values aren’t always valuable.
    • Avoid phrase like…
      “The author wants to show…”
      “The novel was written to demonstrate…”
      “The author asks the audience to engage in…”
  • Don’t summarize.
  • Don’t pad your essay with long quotations.
    • Technically, the 5-page requirement does not include quotations, so aim to go a little over.
    • Triple-spacing between paragraphs doesn’t count either.
  • Don’t summarize.
  • Your ideas should be grouped together and not dropped in with no transitions or thrown in randomly because they kind of sort of fit.
  • Don’t summarize.
  • On Canvas, I made comments and annotations directly onto your submissions.
  • Finally, don’t summarize.

Current Events to Relate to Our Readings

I was surprised that very few of you related current events to your essays. The William Gibson short stories and The Matrix were the main texts at the time this was assigned, and they are perfect to relate to issues about employment. The major labor disputes going on–SAG-AFTRA and UAW and, possibly, Starbucks–are relevant to the control employers (“Johnny Mnemonic”) and technology imposes on workers (Neo’s reality in The Matrix). For instance, one protection SAG-AFTRA workers want is compensation if artificial intelligence (AI) or related technologies use their likeness. It’s VERY easy to generate hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of AI extras to storm the beaches of Normandy or display a zombie horde of shoppers. It’s getting easier to create entire characters from AI. Most of you have seen films that use computer-generated imagery (CGI) to make an actor portraying a younger version of the character look younger (no wrinkles or pores)–this has been going on for decades.

Some possible questions to ponder…

  • How is the nature of Neo’s work and reality related to AI in digital creation?
  • How are the rogue hackers relevant to ransomware and espionage?
  • How are employees tied to their employers through non-compete and non-disclosure agreements?
  • How is Hollywood both a dream factory and a trash producer, which parallels our zombie existence?

Full disclosure: The above suggestions for topics in no way express support for or objection to any of the claims the unions or management/owners are making or have made. I present this as one place to relate topics you’ve brought up to current events. I am perpetually committed to “institution neutrality,” which is mandated by the State of North Carolina.

Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”

This famous piece of satire shows up in many English classes. What value does it have for our class on Science Fiction and American Culture?

I desire those politicians who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold to attempt an answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food at a year old, in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes, as they have since gone through, by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of intailing the like, or greater miseries, upon their breed for ever.

Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Proposal” 1729, The Gutenberg Project.

Obviously, Swift isn’t serious about selling kids for food, but he’s very serious about agitating that the British government do something about poverty. I know it’s hard to imagine that a country, an empire, as strong as Great Britain circa 1729 would have poor people. I mean, could you imagine there being poverty in the United States, the richest country in the world today? Wouldn’t happen. If you’re still missing the point, re-read Asimov’s “A Cult of Ignorance.”

Celebrating Ignorance

Let’s discuss how these texts reflect anti-intellectualism and trite, nationalistic ideology. In addition to the links below, if you have time, you can read a short piece about “American Contradiction” from a rather interesting book (opens as a PDF).

Gender Analysis in Pop Culture

Images of Gender vs. (normal) Behavior

It seems we live in binary worlds, the feminine and masculine, the gay and straight, the liberal and conservative, the red and the blue. While there are more complex arrangements in the “real world,” our menus for gender and sexuality are usually dualistic. Those spheres (and their duality) are socially constructed–they are made up of what is considered normal, and any deviation is considered abnormal. Some say media influence our understanding of what it means to be a man or woman, but others point out that it merely reflects what is already considered normal, or, more importantly, ideal. That’s fairly easily seen with images of men and women–we’ve discussed the limited standards of beauty that are simulated and repeated throughout media–but it’s not as easily seen when we analyze behavioral patterns.

What are normal behaviors and where do they come from?

He-Man and She-Ra

Compare the two introductions to He-Man and She-Ra. Are they the same–meaning no difference in the portrayal of the masculine character vs. the feminine character?

Are the representations congruent with your understanding of masculine and feminine roles? Don’t forget your psychoanalytic hat either: What’s going on with the ways the two hold their swords?

Octavia Butler’s Dawn (1987)

I’m pretty sure we won’t get too far along, so let’s begin this discussion by combining it with the book cover discussion we missed from Samuel R. Delany’s Babel-17 from October 18th. Then, check out the book covers for Dawn:

Next Class

We’ll definitely discuss the first half of Dawn (1987) on Monday (11/06) and finish up the novel on Wednesday (11/08). Then, we have the very peculiar and radical (with an exception regarding relationships…) novel The Dispossessed (1974) by Ursula K. LeGuin, required reading for any intellectual.