Required of students in Writing and Literature. Ways of Reading focuses on a particular canonical author or text(s), utlizing various critical perspectives and secondary sources to support a deeper understanding of the work. The course further develops and reinforces practical skills in close reading, historical contextualization, applied critical theory, and the use of discipline-specific research tools and resources, encouraging conscious reflection on critical presuppositions and practices. This course prepares students to enter the Critical Essay Workshop.COURSE DESCRIPTIONDuring her lifetime, Octavia Butler wrote a dozen novels, won two Hugo and two Nebula Awards, and was the first ever science fiction writer to be awarded a MacArthur "genius" grant. Her novels feature vampires, time travel, alien/human dna swapping, and psionic combat; they also explore issues that continue to haunt us: race, class, sexuality, trauma, power and privilege, climate change, our history, our future, and what that pesky "our" implies. In this class, we'll read her stories and novels, critical and scholarly work about Butler and genre fiction in general, exploring both the contexts of her work and her influence up to this day.

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