The slides for today outline the shift to “hard” SF over the 1940s, pushed forward in John Campbell’s Astounding Stories.  Partisans of hard SF distinguished it from fantasy and “soft” SF, claiming more internally coherent treatments of science.  Jennifer Ng, a present-day writer of SF, has condemned Campbell and Astounding for “setting a tone for SF that haunts this genre to the present day—stale, sterile, male, white, exalting the ambitions of imperialists, colonialists, settlers, and industrialists.” Do you see evidence for or against Ng’s claim in Heinlein’s “The Roads Must Roll” or Lester Del Rey’s “Helen O’Loy”?  How does one of these stories depict manhood, womanhood, race, nationalism, or the role of corporations in an imagined future?  Don’t address all of these categories, but write a paragraph or two that draws on specific language or actions in Heinlein’s or Del Rey’s work. 

The slides for today outline the shift to “hard” SF over the 1940s, pushed forward in John Campbell’s Astounding Stories.  Partisans of hard SF distinguished it from fantasy and “soft” SF, claiming more internally coherent treatments of science.  Jennifer Ng, a present-day writer of SF, has condemned Campbell and Astounding for “setting a tone for SF that haunts this genre to the present day—stale, sterile, male, white, exalting the ambitions of imperialists, colonialists, settlers, and industrialists.” Do you see evidence for or against Ng’s claim in Heinlein’s “The Roads Must Roll” or Lester Del Rey’s “Helen O’Loy”?  How does one of these stories depict manhood, womanhood, race, nationalism, or the role of corporations in an imagined future?  Don’t address all of these categories, but write a paragraph or two that draws on specific language or actions in Heinlein’s or Del Rey’s work. 

The slides for today outline the shift to “hard” SF over the 1940s, pushed forward in John Campbell’s Astounding Stories.  Partisans of hard SF distinguished it from fantasy and “soft” SF, claiming more internally coherent treatments of science.  Jennifer Ng, a present-day writer of SF, has condemned Campbell and Astounding for “setting a tone for SF that haunts this genre to the present day—stale, sterile, male, white, exalting the ambitions of imperialists, colonialists, settlers, and industrialists.” Do you see evidence for or against Ng’s claim in Heinlein’s “The Roads Must Roll” or Lester Del Rey’s “Helen O’Loy”?  How does one of these stories depict manhood, womanhood, race, nationalism, or the role of corporations in an imagined future?  Don’t address all of these categories, but write a paragraph or two that draws on specific language or actions in Heinlein’s or Del Rey’s work. 

The slides for today outline the shift to “hard” SF over the 1940s, pushed forward in John Campbell’s Astounding Stories.  Partisans of hard SF distinguished it from fantasy and “soft” SF, claiming more internally coherent treatments of science.  Jennifer Ng, a present-day writer of SF, has condemned Campbell and Astounding for “setting a tone for SF that haunts this genre to the present day—stale, sterile, male, white, exalting the ambitions of imperialists, colonialists, settlers, and industrialists.” Do you see evidence for or against Ng’s claim in Heinlein’s “The Roads Must Roll” or Lester Del Rey’s “Helen O’Loy”?  How does one of these stories depict manhood, womanhood, race, nationalism, or the role of corporations in an imagined future?  Don’t address all of these categories, but write a paragraph or two about one of them that draws on specific language or actions in Heinlein’s or Del Rey’s work. 

The slides for today talk about the rise of SF in pulp magazines beginning in the late 1920s and through the 1930s.  Judging from the contents of Weinbaum’s stories and the material in the slides, who do you think read these magazines?  What would be the likely demographic categories?  Men? Women? Old? Young? Black? White? Affluent? Working-class?  Feel free to consider other categories.  In a paragraph or two, explain how one bit of specific evidence—a moment or language in Weinbaum’s stories or a detail from a particular cover posted in the slides—guides your thinking.

The slides for today talk about the rise of SF in pulp magazines beginning in the late 1920s and through the 1930s.  Judging from the contents of Weinbaum’s stories and the material in the slides, who do you think read these magazines?  What would be the likely demographic categories?  Men? Women? Old? Young? Black? White? Affluent? Working-class?  Feel free to consider other categories.  In a paragraph or two, explain how one bit of specific evidence—a moment or language in Weinbaum’s stories or a detail from a particular cover posted in the slides—guides your thinking.

The slides for today talk about the rise of SF in pulp magazines beginning in the late 1920s and through the 1930s.  Judging from the contents of Weinbaum’s stories and the material in the slides, who do you think read these magazines?  What would be the likely demographic categories?  Men? Women? Old? Young? Black? White? Affluent? Working-class?  Feel free to consider other categories.  In a paragraph or two, explain how one bit of specific evidence—a moment or language in Weinbaum’s stories or a detail from a particular cover posted in the slides—guides your thinking.

The slides for today talk about the rise of SF in pulp magazines beginning in the late 1920s and through the 1930s.  Judging from the contents of Weinbaum’s stories and the material in the slides, who do you think read these magazines?  What would be the likely demographic categories?  Men? Women? Old? Young? Black? White? Affluent? Working-class?  Feel free to consider other categories.  In a paragraph or two, explain how one bit of specific evidence—a moment or language in Weinbaum’s stories or a detail from a particular cover posted in the slides—guides your thinking.

Leave it to Roll-Oh is a silly, long-form advertisement from General Motors and its subsidiaries, but it posits particular relationships between people and technology. In this ad, how will robot technology change lives?  Do all kinds of people co-exist with robots in the same way?  In one or two well-formed paragraphs, make a specific point about how this ad imagines people (or one kind of person) interacting with “robots.”  

Leave it to Roll-Oh is a silly, long-form advertisement from General Motors and its subsidiaries, but it posits particular relationships between people and technology. In this ad, how will robot technology change lives?  Do all kinds of people co-exist with robots in the same way?  In one or two well-formed paragraphs, make a specific point about how this ad imagines people (or one kind of person) interacting with “robots.”