Week Three: Writing New Mythologies

Reading Assignment: This week we are reading A Hundred Thousand Kingdoms a fantasy novel by N. K. Jemisin. After having experimented a bit with building our own worlds, we will try to take what we have learned as a platform to begin looking at how Jemisin is building her world. Jemisin is becoming one of the most important authors in the fantasy genre and is one of the most interesting world-builders in contemporary fantasy. 

Her work is different at the assumptive level than the seemingly endless fantasies that are placed in white supremacist, patriarchal, hetero-normative worlds, and her assumptions are very skillfully represented and expressed. In addition, her concepts have a cosmic reach that elevates the experience of reading her work onto an archetypal plane. 

Please read as much of the book as you can before coming to class.

In Class: This week we will be discussing the novel assigned for this week. We will undertake to examine the following questions (feel free to think about them before coming to class):

1. From the syllabus of Junot Diaz for his course in world-building for the Writing program at M.I.T.:

What are the primary features of this world--spatial, cultural, biological, fantastic, cosmological? 

What is the world’s ethos (the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize the world)? 

What are the precise strategies that are used by its creator to convey the world to us and us to the world? 

How are our characters connected to the world? 

And how are we the viewer or reader or player connected to the world?”


2. In the second half of the class I would like to discuss the situation for diverse creators in the current mediascape. and especially the situation for women making genre. 
 
“Science fiction isn’t just thinking about the world out there. It’s also thinking about how that world might be—a particularly important exercise for those who are oppressed, because if they’re going to change the world we live in, they—and all of us—have to be able to think about a world that works differently.”--Samuel R. Delany from the Paris Review Interview Here

In the Land of Make Believe, Racial Diversity is a Fantasy--Washington Post Opinion Piece

N.K. Jemisin's Blog is Here

Link to Feminist Frequency and Anita Sarkeesian's important examination of the representation of women in video games. 

William Gibson Interview in which he discusses his own world-building and the origins of cyberspace as a locale for fiction.

Week Two: Transmedia Storytelling and World Building

Map of Oz and Nearby Magical Lands

This week we are looking at the frameworks of established transmedia narratives and the dynamics of reading them and adding to them.

Reading Assignment: I am asking you to read one of thirteen other Oz books that followed Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz and that make up his account of Oz delivered from his perch as its Royal Historian. I am suggesting you read The Road to Oz which is pretty useful for our project since it gives you lots of characters to meet. Whatever you read, try to get an a version with the original illustrations. This should give you enough to ground you a little grounding in the Ozverse. 

After you read a Baum book (which won't take long) please browse around some other Oz materials like Oz comics, books that take place in Oz written by someone other than Baum, short stories that use Oz as a sort a mythic framework, stories that remix Baum in unexpected ways. In these works sometimes Oz overflows into a construction of ordinary reality, in others we are once again invited back to visit Oz itself. Try to read enough of several works to get an idea of how approaches vary and what others have done with Oz as a narrative landscape.

Here is a link to page of quotes from Baum. 

Writing Assignment: After you have read some of Oz, I would like you to create your own addition to this world. I would like you to write what we might think of as a tourist's account of a visit to a specific place in Oz. Begin by locating this place in Oz geography. The two maps of Oz reproduced here should help you situate your own account of Oz. 

We are mostly interested in a tour of the landscape and a sense of the characters who you meet there. Please try to include a character or two from Baum's book to help root us in Oz and then please create several characters of your own for us to meet. Think about the way they talk and what they say. Make their speech as unique to them as possible. Give them some actions that demonstrate their character traits. Oz has many characters that show strong contradictory traits, for example the lion is cowardly, the hard metal man has a tender and sensitive heart, the man with a head of straw (later bran) is really clever... Try to create a character or two that have this strong contradictory quality.

You don't have to worry about creating a story or plot, concentrate on just creating a vivid impression of the landscape and the characters that inhabit it. Post your account on your blog before coming to class on Wednesday.

Week One: Type, Stereotype, and Archetype

Reading Assignment: Before coming to class on Wednesday, please read Veronica Roth's Divergent or as much of it as you can. Consider on her approach to character design and on what appears to be the basis of her archetypology. If you have already read Divergent and seen the movie, then read the two short stories in which Roth retells aspects of the story from the point of view of Four. Follow the link to the course resources page in the Course Links box on this page to find resources for this week's reading. 

Set Up Your Blog:  Each student needs to set up a blog of their own on which they will post the assignments for this course. The blogs will be reviewed at the mid-term and and the end of the course as part of the grading process. To see other details about the course, how grades are determined, and the various course policies please read the course information page which is available through a link in the Course Links box. 

Please set up your blog through Blogger or other blog service and email me the URL for your blog. Please do this before coming to the first class. This does not take long. Be sure to indicate that you are enrolled in the Literature, Film and Pop Culture course so that I can make sure I get your blog address posted to the right course blog.

Bring your notebook or tablet. We usually do some in-class writing during each class session so please bring your notebook computer or tablet to class. There are limited charging stations in the classroom so it is best if you charge up your notebook or mobile device before coming to class.