An exploration of literature and its many forms. This course features a diverse and wide-ranging reading list intended to reveal the creative possibilities of narrative and/or poetics. In addition, the curriculum focuses reading rigorously as writers and adapting the study of literature to one's own creative work.Topic: SPECULATIVE FICTIONThe term “Speculative Fiction” is often attributed to Robert Heinlein, the American Science Fiction writer, who, in an attempt to distance his work from more fantastical “pulp” of the period, used the phrase to describe a type of “realistic” or scientifically accurate (“hard”) science fiction. However, many of the so-called “New Wave” SF writers of the 1960s and 70s also engaged the term to describe that postmodernist branch of the genre. Similarly, Margaret Atwood has described some of her own work as speculative, calling it a “no Martians” style “about things that really could happen.” Today, “speculative” is often used as a catch-all term to describe narratives that use genre conventions of science fiction, horror, or fantasy but are marketed to “highbrow” audiences. So what exactly is this thing? Aren’t ALL fictional narratives in some sense speculative? Is this simply a modern version of Coleridge’s “suspension of disbelief” and Wordsworth’s “defamiliarization”? Perhaps a better way to identify the speculative is through a more critical analysis of its shadow-self: realism. In this class, we will tackle these issues through critical reading and creative production, to discover the ways in which speculation, fabulism, and imagination posit our deepest desires and play out our worst anxieties, what this says about the nature of storytelling and language, and how we can use these techniques to imagine better worlds.

Visit Workday to view this information.