English 192 - Science Fiction
Potential Topics for the Short Paper

Your Choice
Select a topic of particular interest to you using at least one of the works we have covered in class so far. This should be a topic with some relation to themes important in science fiction.

Education and Social Structures
In Frankenstein we compared the education of the creature with that of his creator. How is education important in forming individuals and society in the science fiction texts we have covered. What theories of education are advanced? What kind of social structures emerge from these educational systems?

Definitions of the Human
What makes someone human? Who is excluded from that definition? (Example: Are women human in Frankenstein? Is the creature?) How is the definition of the human impacted by our relationship with science and technology? Philosophy? Is there an “imponderable bloom” that makes humanity special in some way? Ar we in danger of losing our humanity?

The Other
Arrayed against the main characters in many of our stories are characters who are somehow “other.” These “others” can take many forms (Frankenstein’s creature, the Maria-bot, John Savage, women in Frankenstein etc.). What function does the other serve? How might the other define or impact the center? Who speaks for the other? Is the other non-human?

Machine World
As we move into the science fiction of the twentieth century the role of the machine becomes increasingly important. How do human beings relate to the technology around them? Do the machines serve us or do we serve them? Are our lives becoming more controlled and directed by our interaction with technology? Are we becoming more machine like ourselves? What does it mean when we make machines that are more like human beings?

Science and Technology / The Natural
In Frankenstein the natural and the scientific are contrasted with one another as ways of understanding the world. Similar motifs recur in “The Machine Stops” and Brave New World. What does it mean to understand the world in these different ways? What do each offer?

The Great Man / The Individual
In several of the works we have read or seen a single individual rises to prominence through individual desire. In some texts, such as Gattaca, Brave New World and “The Machine Stops,” this individual and his or her values seem to celebrated by the story. By contrast, the “Great Men” of Frankenstein are castigated for their desires. What role does the individual play in particular science fiction texts? How does the individual affect the world around him or her? Why?

History
Consider the relation of any of our texts to their particular historical moment (Metropolis to Weimar Germany, etc.) Why were these stories told at these particular times? What lessons did they have for their audience? What anxieties do they reflect? How are these texts rooted in history? Are they applicable to any time period? How?

Dystopias and Utopias
Several of our stories presents future worlds that are an evocative mix of utopian and dystopian elements. What make a world utopian? For whom might it be utopian? What defines a dystopia? What contemporary anxieties are expressed in the near-utopian dystopias we have read about? What values do the dystopias present?