Posts Tagged ‘genre’
Ye Old Link Roundup!

- I updated my professional website with online article and interviews for the first time in four years. So, yeah, I guess you could say I’m not doing great.
- Special issue of Loading on Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
- Second Languages and Jesuit Core Education.
- Still stripping the walls of copper wire on his way out the door: Trump sought to tap Sidney Powell as special counsel for election fraud. Officials increasingly alarmed about Trump’s power grab. Giuliani asks DHS about seizing voting machines. Ivanka Trump, Famed Public Health Expert, Screened CDC Guidance to Make Sure It Was Nice to Her Dad.
- Remember? Remember? We had fun, didn’t we?
- Panel: People over 75, essential workers next for vaccines. Some more details from the New York Times.
- New ‘worrying’ Covid strain found in South Africa is ‘more severe among young adults.’ Holiday Travel Breaks Pandemic Record Despite Dire Covid Warnings.
- At long, long last: gimme that stimmie.
- Congressional Deal Would Give Higher Ed $23B. Stimulus deal delivers billions in pandemic aid to colleges, but much more is needed, advocates say.
- Congress finally moves to stop surprise medical billing as part of spending deal.
- The COVID-19 Stimulus Bill Would Make Illegal Streaming a Felony.
- Unsanitized: Congress Again Taxes the Time of Benefit Recipients. 35% of Americans Could Lose Their Home in Next Two Months, Census Report Says.
- When do you think would be a good time?
- Dragonlance Writers End Lawsuit Against Dungeons & Dragons Maker. I was hoping for Dragons of Fifth Season Postnormality but someone on Twitter pitched prestige Dragonlance TV and now I’m all in on that.
- Kylo Ren Is the Real Hero of Star Wars, The Stand edition.
- The truth in Black and white: An apology from The Kansas City Star.
- After 25 years, I’m retiring from ‘takes.’
- And they say love is dead: The Journalist and the Pharma Bro.
- Early humans had the right idea I think.
- Chinese Jesus goes hard.
- Discovery roundup. Architecture roundup. Genre theory roundup. Email etiquette roundup.
- I never promised you an LCD factory.
- Divorce as a tool of class struggle.
- 19 years.
- Star Wars, explained.
- And the flood is gonna get here any day.

Tuesday Morning Links!
* Dragons Are for White Kids with Money: On the Friction of Geekdom and Race. Posted in a Facebook thread about this snippet of a review I finished today (which references this immortal Pictures for Sad Children comic).
* Hemingway, or My Mother’s Email?
* If We Live Another Billion Years, a Lot of Crazy Shit Is Going to Happen.
* Like this! Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador. “It’s far worse than what has already been reported.” White House Staff ‘Hiding’ as Russia Chaos Engulfs West Wing.
* Trump to fire everyone? A special prosecutor or an independent commission? Enter the ACLU. 29%. Trump’s Premium on Loyalty Poses Hurdle in Search for FBI Chief. How Trump Gets His Fake News. Republicans who are complicit in Trump’s abuse of power will soon have a big problem. Oh, honey, no. You know, economic anxiety. An all-time great “experts say.” And here’s a bananas story that doesn’t even make the list this week.
* Suddenly relevant: Constitutional Cliffhangers: A Legal Guide for Presidents and Their Enemies.
* If Trump can stop this, though, he deserves a second term.
* Trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in: Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-My Hometown) ratted a woman out to her boss after she spoke out against him.
* Profiles in courage: Richard Burr.
On at least one occasion, he climbed out of an office window to avoid reporters, while carrying his dry cleaning, according to a senior Republican aide who has spoken to him about the episode.
* Racist North Carolina Voting Law Now Permanently Dead.
* There is a fear, among some at MSNBC, that Lack is making programming decisions in an effort to appease the Trump administration (an accusation that has been made of CNN and Fox News), which may lead to more access to the White House and in turn, conservative viewers. O’Donnell was #1 in his timeslot just a few days ago.
* You didn’t think free speech was free, did you?
* How Noncompete Clauses Keep Workers Locked In.
* Doxing the hero who stopped WannaCry was irresponsible and dumb.
* Stolen bees recovered in California sting operation.
* A Remote Paradise Island Is Now a Plastic Junkyard. Farmers Scramble to Adapt to Volatile Weather. Monumental Hands Rise from the Water in Venice to Highlight Climate Change.
* Hearing on UW protest bill shows conflicting views on state of campus speech.
* Klan cosplay in Charlottesville. Disgusting.
* Even as the Trump administration prepares to loosen oversight over immigrant detention facilities, medical care already can be so substandard that cancer is treated with ibuprofen, schizophrenia with Benadryl and serious mental illness with solitary confinement, two new reports found. And if you’re not mad yet: Federal Immigration Agent Allegedly Inquired About 4th Grader At Queens Public School.
* The end of department stores.
* Where is North Korea? Here are guesses from 1,746 adults.
* The project, called Your Brain Manufacturing, was an extension of Bekking’s Brain Manufacturing project, which explored whether designers can use brain analysis to determine what people really like, rather than what their social conditioning leads them to believe they like. The answer may surprise you!
* Really, DC’s coming desecration of Watchmen just looks so unbelievably terrible. I can hardly stand it.
* What is dead may never die. What is dead may never die.
* Star Trek: Mirror Broken looks good though.
* ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ live tour coming to Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater.
* If it isn’t set on Purge Day, it’s just a documentary.
* An A.I. Dreamed Up a Bunch of Dungeons & Dragons Spells. They’re Surprisingly Perfect.
* The arc of history is long, but Nintendo might be making a Legend Of Zelda mobile game. This has my attention, too: Paradox Publishing A “Hardcore” Strategy Game About Mars.
* Science has proved you’re not drunk, you’re just an asshole.
* Also.
* And in a time without heroes, there was @WeRateDogs.
Upcoming Courses, Summer and Fall at Marquette! SF, Tolkien, Genre Theory, Utopia, Hamilton…
Summer 2017!
ENGLISH 2010: Literature and Genre
MW 5:30-9:00pm
Thematic Title: Science Fiction and Genre
Course Description: What is a “genre”? How does the idea of genre impact the way we read and understand literary texts? In this course we will explore these questions by studying the development of the science fiction genre in the twentieth century. What defines science fiction? What makes science fiction different from other sorts of fictions, or other types of texts? Does the name “science fiction” designate a certain set of intellectual concerns, a certain set of narrative and visual clichés, even perhaps a certain type of reader? Is it all just a marketing strategy? What makes one text “science fiction,” another text “literary fiction,” and still other texts “fantasy,” “horror,” or “fairy tale”? Does science fiction imply a certain type of politics, or a particular sort of ethics? Can it teach us anything? Is it good for us or bad for us? We will draw from a wide variety of short stories, comics, novels, games, television series, and films as our archive as we seek to understand how science fiction has adapted and thrived as a genre, even as the “real world” itself becomes more and more indistinguishable from science fiction with each passing year.
Readings: Octavia Butler, Dawn; Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others; Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go; Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead vols. 1 & 2; coursepack
Assignments: Midterm, final project, in-class presentations, class participation, and weekly responses
ENGLISH 6800: STUDIES IN GENRE
MTWTh 3:05-4:35pm
Thematic Title: The Law of Genre
Course Description: The law of genre, Derrida wrote, is “a principle of contamination, a law of impurity, a parasitical economy.” While genres may initially appear to us to be discrete, even obvious publishing and marketing categories, in fact these boundaries are often incredibly fluid, and difficult to define or police. In this special summer session course we will thus explore texts that operate at the weird intersections of genres — texts which seem to operate in more than one generic mode, or which switch fluidly or unexpectedly between genres, or which challenge our understanding of the aesthetic structures, commercial pressures, and political-ethical assumptions that undergird our generic categories. The course includes both literary and popular texts, allowing us to explore how genre circulates within multiple contexts and communities of discourse; in lieu of a traditional seminar paper, your assignments will be directed instead towards the generation of teaching materials and “thinkpiece”-style mini-papers, potentially suitable for publication at digital outlets or as review essays in scholarly journals.
Readings: I am open to suggestions for substitutions based on student interest, but the current planned book list for the course is Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, China Mieville’s The City and the City, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Nabokov’s Lolita,and J.K. Rowling’s The Cursed Child. We will also explore short stories from Flannery O’Connor, H.P. Lovecraft, David Foster Wallace, and Donald Barthelme, as well as academic and popular criticism and at least one recent film.
Assignments: Class participation; weekly reading journal; two “thinkpieces” / mini-papers; in-class presentations; sample course syllabi, lesson plans, and statement of teaching philosophy
Fall 2017!
ENGLISH 4610/5610: INDIVIDUAL AUTHORS
MWF 12-12:50
Thematic Title: J.R.R. Tolkien
Course Description: This decade has seen the hundredth anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien’s earliest writings on Middle-Earth (The Book of Lost Tales, begun in 1917) alongside the completion of Peter Jackson’s career-defining twenty-year project to adapt The Lord of the Rings for film (1995-2015). This course asks the question: Who is J.R.R. Tolkien, looking backward from the perspective of the twenty-first century? Why have his works, and the genre of heroic fantasy that he remade so completely in his image, remained so intensely popular, even as the world has transformed around them? Our study will primarily trace the history, development, and reception of Tolkien’s incredible magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings (written 1937-1949, published 1954-1955)—but we will also take up Tolkien’s often contested place in the literary canon of the twentieth century, the uses and abuses of Tolkien in Jackson’s blockbuster films, the special appeal of Tolkien in politically troubled times, and the ongoing critical interests and investments of Tolkien fandom today. As Tolkien scholars we will also have the privilege of drawing upon the remarkable J.R.R. Tolkien Collection at the Raynor Library here at Marquette, which contains among other treasures the original manuscripts for The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and Farmer Giles of Ham.
Note: No prior knowledge of Tolkien is required. The course is designed for a mix of first-time readers, frequent re-readers, and people who are returning to the books for the first time as adults after many years away.
Readings: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and selected additional readings
Assignments: final paper or creative project; weekly forum posts; one presentation; enthusiastic and informed class participation
ENGLISH 6700: STUDIES IN 20TH CENTURY LITERATURE
MW 2:00-3:15
Thematic Title: Utopia in America
2016 marked the 500th anniversary of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, which inaugurated a literary genre of political and social speculation that continues to structure our imagination of what is possible. We will read Utopia and selected 19th-century utopian texts from the U.S., as well as consider utopian critical theory from thinkers like Fredric Jameson, Darko Suvin, Carl Freedman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Susan Buck-Morss, and Michel Foucault. But the major task before us will be exploring the role utopian, quasi-utopian, dystopian, and downright anti-utopian figurations have played in the work of several key canonical writers of the 20th century: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Flannery O’Connor, Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood, Philip K. Dick, and Octavia Butler.
Readings: Major texts will include Utopia, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Slaughterhouse-Five, Galapagos, Oryx and Crake, The Man in the High Castle, Parable of the Sower, and Parable of the Talents, as well as short stories and critical readings distributed via D2L.
Assignments: class participation; weekly forum posts; in-class presentations; sample course syllabi, lesson plans, and statement of teaching philosophy; seminar paper
UPDATE: Oops, forgot one! It’s not a traditional course, but in the fall I’ll also be doing a twelve-week seminar for the honors program on Hamilton.
HOPR 1953: FIRST-YEAR HONORS SEMINAR
F 2-3:15
Thematic Title: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton
This twelve-week course is devoted to interdisciplinary study of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash musical Hamilton, looking at the play from a variety of disciplinary perspectives: literary studies, history, cultural studies, theater studies, fine arts, and more. Closely studying the musical first in its entirety and then moving through it track-by-track, we will also explore the unexpectedly wide impact of Hamilton in the larger world of popular culture and national politics, including (in multiple ways) the 2016 presidential election. Why Hamilton? Why *this* Hamilton? And why now? Hamilton’s immense popularity, its rich intertextuality, and its incredible internal structural complexity make it a perfect opportunity to become acquainted with academic methods that will, I hope, serve you well across the rest of your time at Marquette and beyond.
New Fall Syllabus #1: Alternate History!
I’m teaching three classes this semester, ENGLISH 4615/5615 (“Infinite Jest”), ENGLISH 2010 (“Alternate History”), and HOPR 1953 (“Video Game Culture”) (one-credit, pass/fail, now with Pokémon Go!). I’m very excited about all three. The Infinite Jest course is one I’ve wanted to do for a very long time — I came up with the whole idea of adding the new 4615/5615 course number to the Marquette English just so I could do this course — and the alternate-history course has been puttering around in my brain as a pedagogical opportunity for just about as long.
I got a lot of help from folks on Twitter and Facebook with the alternate history novel course, both at the level of generating texts but also at the level of conceptualizing the course a little different so it could be more inclusive, and I’m really grateful for that. I was finally sold by Alexis Lothian on the idea that I was being silly by being resistant to stories like The Lathe of Heaven and “The Book of Martha,” for instance, and that the practical effect of that resistance was to make the class much whiter and much maler than it really needed to be. Now, the course is still pretty white and very male, but the genre itself is, and somehow or another that’s something I want to start to talk about as the semester progresses. The excellent suggestion of Karen Joy Fowler’s story “Game Night at the Fox and Goose” will really help me make that pivot, I think, as will In the United States of Africa (a great novel I couldn’t believe I forgot to include until it was pointed out to me I’d forgotten to include it, I think by Aaron Bady).
A few other things I was very sad to lose:
- I was originally going to do “an alternate history of an alternate history” thing to end the semester, Superman: Red Son, but it just didn’t make sense the way the course took shape. I held on to the idea way too long, and only cut the book two days ago. Sorry, bookstore!
- The whole original point of all this was to use the course as an excuse to teach The Years of Rice and Salt, a book I love which seems just too long too teach in any other context. And it still seems too long to teach (at least at the sophomore level). I had to give it up, and wasn’t able to include even any excerpts because I crammed in too much other stuff. Someday!
- Another thing that fell out of the course was a group presentation structure in which individual groups researched the actual history of the hinge point of each divergence and reported on it. I realized that with the newer, more expansive idea of the course this wasn’t going to work very well for at least half the books, and probably would have been reductive and overdetermined our conversations in practice, so it had to be abandoned as well.
- I really, really wanted to include a Ted Chiang what-if-religion-were-empirically-verifiable story like “Hell Is The Absence of God,” but, again, it seemed just a bit far too off the mark this time.
- I am, indeed, doing literally just one page from The Plot Against America, fulfilling my perverse desire to do so.
- There were many other great suggestions for books that I wasn’t able to use. A few that I really struggled over:
- Life After Life: a Replay-style reincarnation novel about World War I;
- Replay itself, which is just too time-travel-ish for this (though I’ve always really liked it);
- I likewise ruled out some other really good alternate-timeline stories because they were really time travel stories, from my puritanical perspective;
- Something longer from Butler, perhaps Wild Seed (again, just too far afield generically for what I’m hoping to do);
- Something truly (“merely”) generic, like Turtledove or Bring the Jubilee;
- Lion’s Blood, Atomik Aztex, The Indians Won, The Bird Is Gone, The Heirs of Columbus, etc. I was so hung up on the idea of doing The Years of Rice and Salt that it crowded out this space for me (and then I added In the United States of Africa instead, to take on this question from a different direction). Next time.
- Swastika Night, 1984, Handmaid’s Tale, Battle Royale: all good suggestions but didn’t hit the sense of “pastness” required by my conception of alternate history as a genre, as they were all future histories in their original moment of production;
- District 9: only (re-)occurred to me at the last second because I was talking about it to somebody in another context, and didn’t have time to do it because the syllabus was (again) too crammed with too much other stuff. Someone had suggested Born in Flames to me as well, which also would have been great.
- I also really wanted to play some board games like Twilight Struggle, Risk, Axis and Allies, and Chrononauts, but it seemed like it would be unwieldy and pointless with 35 students in the room. I think Civilization could scratch the same itch, though…
All right, with all those caveats, apologies, and thanks, here’s the week by week schedule (and full syllabus with all course procedures)! Three papers, the first two “traditionally scholarly,” the third one with a creative option, as well as a few creative micro-assignments here and there. If there’s anything more I should explain or you have any questions about the decisions I made, feel free to ask in the comments!
M | Aug. 29 | FIRST DAY OF CLASS
in-class writing exercise: “What If…” |
W | Aug. 31 | class discussion: “What If…” |
UNIT ONE: ALTERNATE WORLD WAR IIs | ||
F | Sep. 2 | Kim Stanley Robinson, “The Lucky Strike” |
M | Sep. 5 | LABOR DAY—NO CLASS |
W | Sep. 7 | Kim Stanley Robinson, “A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions” |
F | Sep. 9 | FIRST PAPER GUIDELINES DISTRIBUTED
Star Trek: “The City on the Edge of Forever” (discussion only; watch it on your own!) criticism: H. Bruce Franklin, “Star Trek in the Vietnam Era” [D2L] |
M | Sep. 12 | Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle, chapters 1-3 |
W | Sep. 14 | Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle, chapters 4-6 |
F | Sep. 16 | Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle, chapters 7-9 |
M | Sep. 19 | Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle, chapters 10-13 |
W | Sep. 21 | Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle (whole book) |
F | Sep. 23 | The Man in the High Castle (2015 Amazon pilot) (discussion only; watch it on your own!) |
M | Sep. 26 | Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds (discussion only; optional screening date and time TBA) |
W | Sep. 28 | Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds (discussion continues)
· review: Ben Waters, “Debating Inglourious Basterds” [Web] · review: Michael Atkinson, “The Anti-Blockbuster” [Web] · review: Lee Siegel, “Tarantino’s Hollow Violence” [Web] · review: Jeffrey Goldberg, “Hollywood’s Jewish Avenger” [Web] |
F | Sep. 30 | Lauren Davis, “Quentin Tarantino’s Spin Through Alternate History” [io9.com]
creative writing: Draft a short flash fiction [500-1000 words] or create an artifact, document, or image set in the 2016 of the world of Inglourious Basterds
Philip Roth, The Plot Against America (excerpt) [D2L] |
UNIT TWO: OTHER HISTORIES | ||
M | Oct. 3 | FIRST PAPER WORKSHOP
Bring in at least your introductory paragraphs, main claim, and an outline of your paper. |
W | Oct. 5 | Sid Meier’s Civilization
videos: Civilization V timelapse gameplay videos [YouTube] post: Trevor Owens, “Sid Meier’s Colonization: Is It Offensive Enough?” [Web] thread: Lycerius, “I’ve Been Playing the Same Game of Civilization for Almost Ten Years. This Is the Result” [Reddit] |
F | Oct. 7 | Sid Meier’s Civilization
criticism: Kacper Pobłocki, “Becoming-State: The Bio-Cultural Imperialism of Sid Meier’s Civilization” |
M | Oct. 10 | FIRST PAPER DUE
SECOND PAPER GUIDELINES DISTRIBUTED Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” [D2L] |
W | Oct. 12 | Karen Joy Fowler, “Game Night at the Fox and Goose” [D2L] |
F | Oct. 14 | criticism: L. Timmel Duchamp, “Playing with the Big Boys: (Alternate) History in Karen Joy Fowler’s ‘Game Night at the Fox and Goose’” [Web] |
M | Oct. 17 | Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton |
W | Oct. 19 | Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
thinkpiece: Jennifer Schuessler, “Hamilton and History: Are They in Sync?” [Web] interview: Rebecca Onion and Lyra D. Monteiro, “A Hamilton Skeptic on Why the Show Isn’t As Revolutionary As It Seems” [Web] |
F | Oct. 21 | FALL BREAK—NO CLASS |
M | Oct. 24 | Terry Bisson, Fire on the Mountain, pgs. 1-66 |
W | Oct. 26 | Terry Bisson, Fire on the Mountain, pgs. 67-119 |
F | Oct. 28 | Terry Bisson, Fire on the Mountain (whole book) |
M | Oct. 31 | Abdourahman A. Waberi, In the United States of Africa (part one) |
W | Nov. 2 | Abdourahman A. Waberi, In the United States of Africa (whole book)
criticism: Justin Izzo, “Historical Reversibility as Ethnographic Afrofuturism: Abdourahman Waberi’s Alternative Africa” |
F | Nov. 4 | CONFERENCES—CLASS CANCELLED |
UNIT THREE: DREAMING OF DIFFERENCE | ||
M | Nov. 7 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (chapters 1-4) |
W | Nov. 9 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (chapters 5-6) |
F | Nov. 11 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (chapters 7-9) |
M | Nov. 14 | SECOND PAPER DUE
FINAL PROJECT GUIDELINES DISTRIBUTED Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (chapters 10-13) |
W | Nov. 16 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (chapters 14-16) |
F | Nov. 18 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (chapters 17-19) |
M | Nov. 21 | Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (whole book)
Martin Puchner, “When We Were Clones” [D2L] |
W | Nov. 23 | THANKSGIVING BREAK—NO CLASS |
F | Nov. 25 | THANKSGIVING BREAK—NO CLASS |
M | Nov. 28 | Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven (chapters 1-4) |
W | Nov. 30 | Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven (chapters 5-8) |
F | Dec. 2 | Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven (whole book) |
M | Dec. 5 | Octavia E. Butler, “The Book of Martha”
creative writing: Imagine God comes to you with the same offer he/she/it brings to Martha. What one change would you make to the world, and why? |
W | Dec. 7 | Octavia E. Butler, “The Book of Martha” (discussion continues)
creative writing: Draft a flash fiction [500-1000 words] or create an artifact, document, or image set in the world that exists sometime after the end of “The Book of Martha.”
Octavia E. Butler, “Afterword to ‘The Book of Martha’” Gerry Canavan, Octavia E. Butler (excerpt) [D2L] |
F | Dec. 9 | FINAL PROJECT WORKSHOP
LAST DAY OF CLASS |
F | Dec. 16 | FINAL ASSIGNMENT DUE BY 12:30 PM |