Course Overview
Science Fiction is a 6-week, 3-credit hybrid course that gives high school students the opportunity to take a college-level, credit-bearing course on campus for two weeks and then finish the remaining four weeks online from the comfort of your home – or wherever life takes you.
The origins and definition of Science Fiction are debated by fans and scholars all over the world. Likewise, scholars continue to debate the value of the genre. In this class, we’ll take an eclectic approach to unpacking Sci-Fi’s generic conventions by exploring literary texts alongside media like films, games, and music. By doing so, we will question conventional conceptualizations of “the literary,” forming a fluid media literacy and developing a critical eye for matters both within and beyond the classroom.
In the early years, the loudest voices (not the only voices) in the genre were the usual: white men speculating about white men and their creations and encounters—in some other world or in our own, in the future or in our own time. We will read many of these works with the intention of both critiquing their shortsightedness and appreciating their imagination and invention. We’ll challenge the traditional canonical confines of Sci-Fi literature by engaging with narratives from Afrofuturist and indigenous futurist traditions. We cover texts as old as Margaret Cavendish’s 1666 book, The Blazing World and as recent as queer romantic short stories published in 2021.
We will also inquire about how the genre speaks to the humanist issues of its time at each moment in time—war, industry, social upheaval and change, racism and sexism, climate catastrophe, and more. In this course, we will take Science Fiction seriously as we explore possible beginnings, movements, subgenres and shifts within Science Fiction short stories and novels, as well as some television. Many of us are fans of the genre, creating a different kind of attachment to the texts and authors we will read than other forms of literature, and we will think about how that fandom influences readings of these works.
All students who successfully complete the course will receive a Certificate of Completion and have the opportunity to request a Syracuse University credit transcript.
Course Objectives
Students will:
- Recognize how (Science) Fiction creates meanings by practicing critical analysis and close reading within the context of literary and cultural theory.
- Analyze texts in relation to their historical contexts—the class will look at a few different movements within the history of the Science Fiction genre and consider the social and scientific issues of those times and examine how the language and story tropes reflect those concerns and comment upon them.
- Analyze texts in relation to their media and industrial context—we will unpack the ways in which different media forms lend themselves to particular kinds of narrative presentation, as well as the economic incentives that shape narratives and their distribution to audiences.
- Analyze texts as bearers of political meaning and mediators of power relationships. Because Science Fiction as a genre is invested in imagining other ways of living and possible worlds, it is often a direct effort to imagine solutions to and/or future crises within social and cultural problems.
- Analyze the ways texts construct categories of difference, including differences of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, and class. Within Science Fiction, these issues play out on multiple registers, and allegorical presentations of social structures and hierarchies.
- Formulate sustained interpretive, analytical, or conceptual arguments based on evidence drawn from texts—this comes from in-class discussion, group work, and short responses essays, and creative work.
Course Information
Course Prefix and Number: ENG 125
Format: Hybrid (2 weeks at Syracuse University, 4 weeks online)
Eligibility: Students must be of rising high school junior or senior status – or a 2023 high school graduate.
Credit: 3 credits
Grading: A-F
Cost:
- Hybrid Residential-Online: $4,535
- Hybrid Commuter-Online: $3,590
Program rates are subject to change and will be approved by the board of trustees. Discounts and scholarships are also available.
Program Information
Summer College – Hybrid: Combine on campus and online study. Experience Syracuse University on campus for two-weeks and complete the final four-weeks of your course online from the comfort of your own home – or wherever life takes you!
“Syracuse University’s Summer College was a wonderful experience and opportunity I was fortunate to be accepted into.”
-Matthew S., Summer College – Online Student, 2021
Course Dates and Details
| Program | Course Dates | Class Time (Eastern Time) | Credit/Noncredit | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Summer College – Hybrid | On Campus Session: Sunday, July 2 – Friday, July 14, 2023 Online Session: Monday, July 17 – Friday, Aug. 10, 2023 | On Campus Class Time: MTWThF; TBD Synchronous Online Class Time: MTWTh; TBD | 3 credits | Closed |
Course Requirements
Technology Requirements
- Laptop or desktop computer with a webcam
- Reliable internet access
- A space conducive to taking an online class (without distractions)
Required Supplies
Students should budget for required textbooks and supplies.
Typical Day
- Engage in open conversation about the texts we’ve read, what stood out to us about them, and what critical ideas we can identify or relate to them.
- View (short) slide-based lectures that provide historical context and other framing information for the texts being discussed.
- Read and view crucial portions of our texts together to collectively conduct close readings, extracting as much meaning from the texts as possible.
- Participate in groupwork and in-class writing assignments that challenge students to refine their initial thoughts and reactions to the texts at hand into cogent and focused analysis.
Tentative Schedule
TBD.
Instructor Bio
Sam currently studies narrative, visual rhetoric, and performance in video games, with a particular focus upon how interactive experiences of cyberpunk Science Fiction provide avenues to reevaluate and reimagine conceptions of consciousness and personhood. He often studies texts prominent within gaming popular culture, and aims to form a critical understanding of digital play as a transformative experience wherein the player and character identities converge. Teaching game studies, fiction, science-fiction, and nonfiction, his courses aim to impart media literacy skills that translate across disciplines.