Grant recipients:
Victoria Lamont, English Language and Literature
Meghan Riley, English Language and Literature
(Project timeline: September 2018-August 2019)
Description
The following project will “investigate 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 will also assist 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.
The project will “foster deep student learning” through engaging students in a consideration of how shapeshifters – human characters who can change form and assume different races and sexes – are indicative of race and gender as social constructions. Moreover, it will pair speculative fiction literature with popular speculative fiction television, appealing to students’ interests across media and increasing the likelihood that students will use course concepts to analyze speculative fiction TV.