2020-21 MM Polarizing Fiction: Science in Popular Literature

     page under construction

• Modul: ang981/2/3
• Lecturer: Anna Auguscik

• Course: 3.02.980
• Time: Thursday 10-12h
• Venue: online via Stud.IP, BBB meetings

• Course Description: In this course, we will focus on two novels that fit a wide range of categories: both Kim Stanley Robinson's Antarctica (1997) and Michael Crichton's State of Fear (2004) have been read and discussed under the umbrella of various genre buzzwords. As popular fiction, these novels are set apart in their production, circulation and reception from what is commonly known as literary fiction. As polar fiction, they belong to a tradition of texts set in the extreme landscape of the North or South Pole. As science novels, they take scientists, their methods and practice centre-stage. As climate fiction, Robinson's and Crichton's novels participate in a highly politicized debate. In fact, the authors have often been placed on or become the spokesperson of opposite sides of the public discourse on global warming. It is at this crossroads that their oeuvre becomes of interest to a literary and cultural investigation of these texts from the perspective of questions regarding the canon and its margins.

Please, buy and read the following novels:

• Robinson, Kim Stanley. Antarctica.
• Crichton, Michael. State of Fear.
• as well as one other science thriller / science fiction text by either of these two authors: [to be discussed]

PLEASE NOTE: All primary materials will be made available at the CvO bookshop. Please use the time until the beginning of term to immerse yourself in the reading of the first two novels. Additional materials for preparation, as well as the detailed syllabus, will be made available here and/or on Stud.IP. There will be a Handapparat in our library.

Session 1:

• Welcome: Please read my message under 'Ankündigungen on Stud.IP'; familiarize yourself with the draft syllabus that you find here and note the course requirements for 9 KP:

• (1) excerpts and textual analysis assignments (upload weekly to Stud.IP)
• (2) three RPOs (1 per novel, 1 page each; upload to Stud.IP)
• (3) one seminar paper (15-20 pp), based on the topic of one of your RPOs (upload to Stud.IP and hand in as print version by 15 March).

• We will meet on Stud.IP (go to our course --> 'meetings' --> no camera, mute microphone (we will add these as we proceed)

Session 2:

• Topic:
• Primary Source:
• Secondary Source:

Session 4:

  [Hand in RPO #1 until session 5]

Session 7:

• evaluation

Session 8:

• feedback on evaluation

  [Hand in RPO #2 until session 9]

Session 10:

• Writing a Research Paper (Examples)
• Examples for POA
• literary and cultural studies style sheet

  [Hand in RPO #3 until session 11]

Session 12:

• feedback on RPOs
• discussion of research papers

  [Hand in research papers until 15 March 2021]

Tools

• Handout Literature & Representation
• Handout Key Concepts in Cultural Studies: Culture and Representation
• Handout: Narratology
• Handout: Traditions in our discourse about literature
• Handout: (Non-)literary texts
• Handout: Excerpt

Primary Reading

• see above

Secondary Reading

• will be made available via Stud.IP; the "Handapparat"; and/or via the university's online access:

• [1]
• [2]
• [3]
• [4]
• [5]
• [6]
• [7]
• [8]

Further Reading

• cf. Stud.IP/Dateien