English 243/001: Science Fiction and Fantasy/Speculative Fiction (September 2019)

Posted on April 16, 2019 by Gisèle M. Baxter

Science Fiction and Fantasy/Speculative Fiction – Term 1 MWF 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. – Gisèle M. Baxter

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The Posthuman Prometheus: Frankenstein’s Legacy in the Artificial Humans of Speculative Fiction

“Have you ever retired a human by mistake?” – Rachael to Deckard, Blade Runner

The near-future and alternate-reality landscapes of literary and popular culture are often terrifying places, and have been since Gothic and dystopian impulses intersected in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Shelley’s landmark tale evokes dread in the implications of Victor’s generation of a humanoid Creature; this dread echoes in the creatures haunting recent speculative fiction: clones, androids, artificial intelligences, cyborgs. Such texts conjure questions of gaze (why are these creatures so often attractive young women presented as the object of male desire?), rights, research ethics, and fear, in the realization that these creatures are, ultimately, not human but posthuman, yet often more sympathetic than their makers. You will write two short essays, a term paper requiring secondary research, and a final examination, and will contribute to in-class and online discussion.

Core texts tentatively include Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, William Gibson’s Neuromancer, the Wachowskis’ The Matrix: The Shooting Script, Madeline Ashby’s Vn, and either Blade Runner (dir. Ridley Scott, Final Cut edition) or Blade Runner 2049 (dir. Denis Villeneuve); another core text or film may be added. A list of supplementary recommended texts will be supplied (from The Island of Dr. Moreau to Ex Machina and beyond), and online readings will be put in Library Course Reserves.

Keep checking this post for updates concerning the course, its texts, and its requirements.

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English 110/034 Approaches to Literature (January 2020)

Posted on April 16, 2019 by Gisèle M. Baxter

Approaches to Literature – Term 2 (034: TTh 2:00-3:30 p.m.) – Gisèle M. Baxter

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Literary Monsters and Monstrous Literature

Rey: “You are a monster.”
Kylo Ren: “Yes, I am.”
– Star Wars: The Last Jedi

“Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into this breathing world” – Richard III 1.i

What is a monster? We know monsters from myths and legends, folktales, horror fiction and film. We know their variety: the grotesque, the beautiful, the terrifying, the pitiable, the sports of nature and the forces of evil. Dragons, werewolves, vampires, zombies, Frankenstein’s Creature, Mr. Hyde, the Joker, most of the characters in Penny Dreadful: they’re everywhere, from under the bed to the battlefield, and right into a great deal of literature. Which leaves us here: in this section of 110 we’ll focus on how literary texts use representations of monstrosity to say a variety of things.

We’ll look at excerpts from William Shakespeare’s Richard III (a play that both meditates on villainy and ambition, and demonizes its subject for Tudor audiences), then at Ian McKellen’s 1995 film adaptation, which shifts the setting to an alternate-reality 1930s England where fascism takes hold. Other core texts include Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as well as selected short fiction and poetry.

Evaluation will be based on two or three essays, participation in discussion (both in class and online), and an essay-based final examination.

Keep checking this post for updates concerning the course, its texts, and its requirements.

 

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English 100/016: Reading and Writing About Literature (January 2020)

Posted on April 16, 2019 by Gisèle M. Baxter

Reading and Writing About Literature – Term 2 TTh 12:30-2:00 p.m. – Gisèle M. Baxter

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Haunted Houses

“What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber.”

– The Devil’s Backbone (dir. Guillermo Del Toro)

Where is the fascination, even when the deepest mysteries of the universe are being scientifically unlocked, in stories of haunted houses? What accounts for the lure, and even the enjoyment, of tales of terror and horror, even in the 21st century? This course examines the Gothic influence in texts where collisions of past and present, and implications of the uncanny, allow fascinating investigations of social codes and their transgression.

Core texts include Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, Alan Garner’s The Owl Service, Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger, and The Others (dir. Alejandro Amenábar). Through readings in current criticism and theory, we will develop strategies for textual analysis in literary and cultural studies. We will also consider the difficulty, if not impossibility, of reaching a “fixed” or consensus reading of any text. You will write two short essays, a term paper requiring secondary research, and a final examination, and will contribute to in-class and online discussion.

Keep checking this post for updates concerning the course, its texts, and its requirements.

 

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English 301/001: Technical Writing (January 2020)

Posted on April 16, 2019 by Gisèle M. Baxter

Technical Writing – Term 2 TTh 9:30-11:00 a.m. – Gisèle M. Baxter

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Now with added grammar! While 301 is not a course in remedial grammar, this section will provide both online Canvas-based writing resources and a two-week series of classroom-time workshops, designed to help identify writing and proofreading problems, and to provide strategies to address them.

English 301: Technical Writing examines the rhetorical genre of professional and technical communication, especially online, through analysis and application of its principles and practices. You will produce a formal report, investigating resources and/or concerns in a real-life community, as a major project involving a series of linked assignments. This project will involve the study (and possibly practical application) of research ethics where human subjects are involved (e.g. in conducting surveys or interviews).

Think of this course as an extended report-writing Boot Camp: intensive, useful preparation for the last phase of your undergraduate degree, as you start applying to professional and graduate programs, and for the years beyond of work and community involvement. Note: this is a blended course, with both classroom and online components and requirements. Technical Writing is closed to first- and second-year students in Arts, and cannot be used for credit towards the English Major or Minor.

Course Text:

  • Lannon et al, Technical Communications, 7th Canadian Edition, Pearson, 2017. (Hard copy and e-text versions are both available and acceptable.)
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English 243/951: Science Fiction and Fantasy (Summer 2019)

Posted on January 16, 2019 by Gisèle M. Baxter

UBC Summer 2019 Term 2 (July-August); MW 6-9 p.m. Buchanan D316

Dr. Gisèle M. Baxter

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The Posthuman Prometheus: Frankenstein’s Legacy in the Artificial Humans of Speculative Fiction

“Have you ever retired a human by mistake?” – Rachael to Deckard, Blade Runner

The near-future or alternate-reality landscapes of literary and popular culture are often terrifying places, and have been since Gothic and dystopian impulses intersected in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Shelley’s landmark tale evokes dread in the practical and ethical implications of Victor’s scientific generation of a humanoid Creature; this evocation echoes in the simulacra that haunt recent speculative fiction: clones, androids, artificial intelligences, cyborgs. Such texts conjure questions of gaze (why are these creatures so often attractive young women presented as the object of male desire?), of rights, of research ethics, and of fear, in the realization that these creatures are, ultimately, not human but posthuman. We will consider the perspectives both of the makers, who dread lost control over their creations, and of their offspring, as they discover what they are, in texts that often invite identification with the creature more than the maker, even as they suggest that humans’ time may well be ending.

Tentative Core Text List:

  • Grace L. Dillon, ed. Hive of Dreams: Contemporary Science Fiction from the Pacific Northwest
  • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818 edition)
  • Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
  • Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
  • Blade Runner, dir. Ridley Scott (Final Cut edition)

1-2 other texts will be added, possibly including a graphic novel.

A list of supplementary recommended texts will be supplied (from The Island of Dr. Moreau and Brave New World to Ex Machina and Blade Runner 2049, and beyond) on the course’s Canvas site. As well, material (as much as possible full text online) will be put on Library Reserve.

Keep checking this post for updates concerning the course, its texts, and its requirements.

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English 301/001: Technical Writing (January 2019)

Posted on April 12, 2018 by Gisèle M. Baxter

Technical Writing – Term 2 TTh 9:30-11:00 a.m. – Gisèle M. Baxter

Don’t let the name fool you: this is not a course in remedial grammar! Technical Writing examines principles and practices of communication in various professional contexts (mostly online). You will produce a formal report, investigating resources and/or concerns in a real-life community and making recommendations for improvement or solution. Production of this report will involve the study (and possibly practical application) of research ethics where human subjects are involved (e.g. in conducting surveys or interviews). Think of this course as an extended report-writing Boot Camp: intensive, useful preparation for the last phase of your undergraduate degree, as you start applying to professional and graduate programs, and for the years beyond of work and community involvement. This is the description posted on the English Department website; keep checking this blog for updates concerning the course, its texts, and its requirements. Note: this is a blended course, with both classroom and online components and requirements.While technical competence in writing is required, the course will not cover grammar and mechanics (though it will provide lots of writing resources on its Canvas site). Technical Writing is closed to first- and second-year students in Arts, and cannot be used for credit towards the English Major or Minor.

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English 468B/002: Children’s Literature (September 2018)

Posted on April 12, 2018 by Gisèle M. Baxter

Children’s Literature – Term 1 MWF 12:00-12:50 p.m. – Dr. Gisèle M. Baxter

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Something in the Shadows is Watching

“You are always in danger in the forest, where no people are.” Angela Carter, “The Company of Wolves”

From The Turn of the Screw to The Others, creepy children frequently haunt Gothic texts. But what of Gothic texts assuming a young audience? Children’s/YA literature so often focuses on successful (or not so successful) negotiation of threats and learning opportunities in the intimate and public worlds around the child that “children’s” tales are often scarier than adult fiction.

In this section, we will study a variety of texts through a literary/cultural studies critical and theoretical lens, exploring their (sometimes) evolving genre features. We’ll start with familiar (and not-so-familiar) oral-tradition folk/fairytales, to consider how their recurring devices establish tropes still frequently recurring. Then we will stray from the path and consider how a selection of novels might challenge or subvert perceived boundaries and conventions, especially in engaging with Gothic themes and motifs.

Evaluation will be based on two short essays, a term paper requiring secondary academic research, and an essay-based final examination, as well as participation in discussion both in class and on Canvas.

Text List

I’ve ordered the following texts from the bookstore. I do want you to use the new 5th edition of Folk and Fairy Tales, but you may use any edition of the novels as long as it is unabridged.

  • Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek, eds. Folk and Fairy Tales, 5th Edition. (Broadview)
  • Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
  • Roald Dahl, The Witches
  • Alan Garner, The Owl Service
  • Neil Gaiman, Coraline
  • Richelle Mead, Vampire Academy

Watch this site for updates.

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English 110/MA4: Approaches to Literature (Summer 2018)

Posted on February 14, 2018 by Gisèle M. Baxter

Approaches to Literature
Term 1 Summer 2018 (May-June)
TTh 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM 

Literary Monsters and Monstrous Literature

Rey: “You are a monster.”
Kylo Ren: “Yes, I am.”
– Star Wars: The Last Jedi

“Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time into this breathing world” – Richard III 1.i

What is a monster? We know monsters from myths and legends, folktales, horror fiction and film. We know their variety: the grotesque, the beautiful, the terrifying, the pitiable, the sports of nature and the forces of evil. Dragons, werewolves, vampires, zombies, Frankenstein’s Creature, Mr. Hyde, the Joker, most of the characters in Penny Dreadful: they’re everywhere, from under the bed to the battlefield, and right into a great deal of literature. Which leaves us here: in this section of 110 we’ll focus on how literary texts use representations of monstrosity to say a variety of things.

We’ll look at excerpts from William Shakespeare’s Richard III (a play that both meditates on villainy and ambition, and demonizes its subject for Tudor audiences), then at Ian McKellen’s 1995 film adaptation, which shifts the setting to an alternate-reality 1930s England where fascism takes hold. We’ll examine Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla, a novel about a female vampire that influenced the writing of Dracula, and Charles Perrault’s 17th century tale “Bluebeard”; while its status as a children’s story is now problematic, its influence on literary and popular culture is enormous.

Evaluation will be based on two in-class essays, a term paper, participation in discussion (in class and online), and an essay-based final examination.

Text List:

Note: titles with publishers have been ordered through the UBC Bookstore. The film Richard III will be available via Library Reserve on dvd; other viewing options will be announced in class. Carmilla and “Bluebeard” will be linked to the course’s Canvas site via Project Gutenberg and Wikisource respectively. Other short fiction (tentatively including Francesca Lia Block’s “Bones” and Angela Carter’s “The Lady of the House of Love”) will be available in full text online through Library Reserve.

  • Susan Holbrook, How to Read (and Write About) Poetry (Broadview)
  • Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818) (Broadview Third Edition)
  • William Shakespeare, Richard III (Signet)
  • Richard III (1995 film, directed by Richard Loncraine, with Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Robert Downey Jr., Maggie Smith, Adrian Dunbar, Jim Broadbent etc.)
  • Sheridan LeFanu, Carmilla
  • Charles Perrault, “Bluebeard” and various other short stories (see Note above)
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English 100/017: Reading and Writing About Literature (January 2018)

Posted on October 19, 2017 by Gisèle M. Baxter

ENGL 100/017:  Strange Creatures – Gisèle M. Baxter

Term 2 TTh 2:00-3:30 p.m.

 “Have you ever retired a human by mistake?” – Rachael to Deckard, Blade Runner

From V for Vendetta to The Hunger Games to The Walking Dead, the near-future landscapes of literary and popular culture are terrifying places. In this course, we will consider dystopian speculations that reflect on the present and recent past, especially concerning the threats of mass surveillance, profit-motivated technology, environmental crisis, and redefinitions of human identity. Our core texts will be John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and the Director’s Cut of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (though you will be encouraged to introduce other relevant texts). Through readings in current criticism and theory, we will develop strategies for textual analysis in literary and cultural studies. We will also consider the difficulty, if not impossibility, of reaching a “fixed” or consensus reading of any text. You will write two short essays, a term paper requiring secondary research, and a final examination, all focused on literary textual analysis, and will contribute to in-class and online discussion.

© Gisèle M. Baxter. Not to be copied, used, shared, or revised without explicit written permission from the copyright owner.

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English 362/001: Studies in a 19th-Century Genre (September 2017)

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Gisèle M. Baxter

ENGL 362-001: Ghosts are Real (So are Vampires): 19th-Century Gothic Horror – Gisèle M. Baxter

Term 1 MWF 10:00 a.m.

“I know that ghosts have wandered on the earth.” – Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

Whether we take Edith Cushing, Abraham Van Helsing, and Heathcliff at their word, the 19th-century Gothic revival certainly emphasized possibilities for horror and terror in tales of the supernatural. However, these interventions of un-dead beings often take place in the recognizable present; they speak to its anxieties. Perhaps they speak to ours as well, given our recent fascination with Neo-Victorian representations of the 19th century, such as Penny Dreadful, From Hell, Crimson Peak, etc. As we journey into the dark days of autumn, we will address issues of gender and sexuality; class, race, and culture; realism and the supernatural; urban and rural settings, all in a century known for developments in science and technology, social upheaval, and a veneer of respectability, yet with monsters lurking in closets and under beds.

The core text list includes Wuthering Heights, Carmilla, Dracula, The Turn of the Screw, and short fiction including works by Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, M.R. James, Arthur Machen, Sheridan LeFanu, W.W. Jacobs, and E. Nesbit (and possibly others; we may even look at a few excerpts from the genuine penny dreadful serial, Varney the Vampire). We will consider the evolution of academic critical responses (as well as popular reaction) to such texts, and the way in which such texts have shaped the way we think about and visualize the 19th century. Evaluation will be based on two short essays, a term paper, and a final examination, all focused on literary textual analysis, as well as contribution to in-class and Connect-based discussion.

The following books have been ordered through the UBC Bookstore:

  • Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (Broadview)
  • Henry James, The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories (Broadview)
  • Bram Stoker, Dracula (Broadview)
  • Michael Cox and R.A. Gilbert, eds. The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories (Oxford)

Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla will be linked to the course’s Connect site as a Project Gutenberg text (allowing you to read it online or download to a computer or e-reader). Wuthering Heights, The Turn of the Screw, and Dracula are also available online, and if you already own unabridged copies of them, feel free to use those, but the Broadview editions are reasonably priced and contain useful contextual material. Other short stories will also be linked to Connect, as well as academic critical resources and writing resources.

© Gisèle M. Baxter. Not to be copied, used, shared, or revised without explicit written permission from the copyright owner.

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