ENG 130: Writing About Literature

“I’ve never seen a hero like me in a sci-fi” —FKA twigs

We think: it’s like living in a sci-fi. Face protected with a mask, tests and screenings routinized (that is, if you have access to them), communication taking place on screen—from learning to dancing, our faces and bodies are framed by Zoom windows, “virtual” our new reality. More than ever, we imagine a nostalgic return to the before times (“BC—Before Covid”) and long for a world where we could gather with loved ones without fear. Or we fantasize of a future yet to come (“when it’s all over”) and envision ourselves making up for time lost in quarantine, social distancing, languish. Persevere, and we will outlive this dystopia, we are told.

Yet: weren’t we always living in a dystopia? Weren't the worlds of science fiction always our own? When Spanish settlers massacred indigenous peoples of the Americas, following Christopher Columbus’s initial journey in 1492, the genocide caused a seismic shift: the planet’s temperature dropped, resulting in what is now known as “the Little Ice Age.” Perhaps we have always lived in a sci-fi, a dystopian one at that. But as Octavia Butler teaches us, “all that you touch, you change”—we can change and have changed the world to be a better, more just place.

This section of English 130 takes seriously the world-changing, imaginative power science fiction harbors. Science fiction theorizes change and analyzes ideologies undergirding our society’s organizing principles and dominant imaginaries by unsettling what we might think as “normal” and “natural.” Our class will examine how science fiction engages with various histories and different social relations, by building close and careful reading skills and practicing research that will allow us to attend to the complexities of each text.

Please note that you may not record classes or distribute materials I have created and uploaded for this class to anyone outside of this class without my explicit, written permission.