{"id":538,"date":"2025-07-08T18:43:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T01:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/?p=538"},"modified":"2025-10-11T15:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T22:42:10","slug":"engl-243-002-january-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/2025\/07\/08\/engl-243-002-january-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"ENGL 243\/002 (January 2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"

ENGL 243\/002: Speculative Fiction (Revised)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Monstrous Science<\/strong><\/p>\n

Term 2 TTh 9:30-11:00a<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet.\u201d \u2013 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein<\/em>, Chapter IV<\/p>\n

\u201cWe make Angels. In the service of Civilization. There were bad angels once \u2026 I make good angels now.\u201d – Niander Wallace, Blade Runner 2049<\/em><\/p>\n

Over 40 years ago, Patrick Brantlinger argued in \u201cThe Gothic Origins of Science Fiction\u201d that a problem in reading Science Fiction as \u201crealistic prophecy \u2026 arises from the fact that the conventions of science fiction derive from the conventions of fantasy and romance, and especially from those of the Gothic romance. Science fiction grows out of literary forms that are antithetical to realism.\u201d More recently, two 2019 essays by Daniel Pietersen on Sublime Horror<\/em> (republished on his own site), \u201cThe universe is a haunted house \u2013 the Gothic roots of science fiction\u201d<\/a> and \u201cSpiders and flies \u2013 the Gothic monsters of sci-fi horror,\u201d<\/a> explore the intersection of terror and horror tropes in what we can only call Gothic Science Fiction.<\/p>\n

The landscapes of science fiction are often terrifying places and have been since Gothic and dystopian impulses intersected in Mary Shelley\u2019s landmark novel Frankenstein<\/em>. Shelley\u2019s tale evokes dread in the implications of Victor\u2019s generation of a humanoid Creature; this dread echoes in more recent narratives concerning clones, robots and replicants, artificial intelligences, cyborgs. Such texts raise issues concerning research ethics, gendered exploitation, the rights attached to consciousness, and the fear arising from the realization that these creatures are, ultimately, not human but posthuman, though often more sympathetic than their makers, despite being relegated to the status of commodities. This course is not about scientific research that has vastly benefitted worlds and their inhabitants (even if such claims are made by the scientists whom we will meet in our course texts): it\u2019s about bizarre singular passion projects and their progeny, about science gone wrong, about the byways of pseudoscience, about the implications of profit-motivated technology, environmental crisis, and redefinitions of human identity.<\/p>\n

Core texts include Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein<\/em>; H.G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau<\/em>; Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake<\/em>; Alien<\/em> (dir. Ridley Scott), Jurassic Park<\/em> (dir. Stephen Spielberg), and Blade Runner 2049<\/em> (dir. Denis Villeneuve).<\/p>\n

Evaluation will tentatively be based on a midterm essay, a term paper requiring secondary academic research, a final reflection essay, and participation in discussion in the lecture periods and on Canvas.<\/p>\n

Keep checking this blog for updates concerning texts and requirements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ENGL 243\/002: Speculative Fiction (Revised) Monstrous Science Term 2 TTh 9:30-11:00a \u201cIt was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":450,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/450"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":557,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions\/557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/drgmbaxter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}