Grant Recipients:
Victoria Lamont, English Language and Literature
Meghan Riley, English Language and Literature
(Project timeline: September 2018-August 2019)
Project Summary
The following project investigates innovative approaches to enhancing teaching and learning by examining students’ awareness of the interrelated aspects of identity based on race, sex, class, and gender, as well as how discrimination is often based on multiple intersecting identity markers, through science fiction, fantasy, horror, and alternate history. It also assists students in understanding postcolonial theory as a theory which critiques the privileging of knowledge and production by and of white men through colonialist histories and literature.
Findings/Insights
In summative exercises students demonstrated awareness of how SF texts defamiliarize colonial constructs and identity categories. For example, when asked to write discussion questions that put several SF texts in conversation, one student posed the following question: “Both texts feature the existence of supernatural powers within an otherwise recognizable contemporary world (as opposed to as elaborate fantasy world). What opportunities does a ‘normal’ setting raise for the communication of subtext and themes? What are the limitations of choosing this setting?” Students responded that a more familiar setting was not only more “relatable” - for instance, a world in which the narrative was structured around a “current situation” in the “actual world” - but also made the fantastical elements more “shocking.” They also argued that though the distant future setting and science fictional elements assisted in imagining sex and genders beyond our familiarity, the “recognizable relationships between parents and children” aided in a reader’s ability to find the narrative - and thus, the differentiation of sex and gender roles - credible. In addition to insights about the impact of SF on student understanding of intersectional and post-colonial theories of identity, this research generated detailed lesson plans that are part of Meghan Riley’s Ph.D. dissertation on colonialism in womens speculative fiction. These lesson plans will be useful to educators at the secondary and post-secondary level.
References
Calkins, Elizabeth and Barry McGhan. “Science Fiction in the High School.” Teaching Science Fiction: Education for Tomorrow. Ed. Jack Williamson. King of Prussia, PA: Owlswick Press, 1980. 82-96. Print.
Hoben, James. “Reading Alien Suns: Using SF Film to Teach a Political Literacy of Possibility.” Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction: Challenging Genres. Ed. P.L. Thomas. 97-115.
Lavender, Isiah. Race in American Science Fiction. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011. Online. 10 Mar. 2014.
Mehan, Uppinder. “Teaching Postcolonial Science Fiction.” Teaching Science Fiction. Ed. Andy Sawyer and Peter Wright. Palgrave Macmillan, London: 2011.
Mendoza, Ruben. “Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Science Fictional Teaching in a Neoliberal Age: James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon) and China Miéville as Sophistic Pedagogists.” Paradoxa, 27 (Sep. 2015).
Vint, Sherryl. “Octavia Butler: Be(com)ing Human.” Bodies of Tomorrow: Technology,
Subjectivity, Science Fiction. Toronto, ON, CA: University of Toronto Press, 2006. 56-78.