My Spring 2012 Near-Future Science Fiction Schedule of Assignments

You can find my ENGL 216 syllabus at http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/sf3/, but just in case the Fredonia site ever goes down, here's the (insane) schedule of assignments for my Spring 2012 Near-Future Science Fiction course.  OK, maybe it's not as insane as it looks, at least for writing assignments:  in addition to ongoing participation on our discussion board, students have to write at least two critical essays (not all four listed!)

T 1/24 Introductions, Overview, Set-up.
Th 1/26 Near-Future? Science Fiction?

The Bad Old Century

T 1/31 Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One-Two (1-230)
Th 2/2 Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part Three-Appendix (231-323)

T 2/7 Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, Part I-XI (1-253)
Th 2/9 Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale, Part XII-Historical Notes (254-395)

T 2/14 Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, Part One-Two (1-203)
Th 2/16 Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, Part Three (204-288)

The Bad New Century

T 2/21 Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Part One-Two (1-110)
Th 2/23 Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Part Three-Coda (111-190)
F 2/24 CRITICAL ESSAY I due by 11:30 pm in CE Drop Box on course ANGEL site (attach as .rtf, .doc, .docx, or .pdf document, please).

T 2/28 Butler, Parable of the Sower, 2024-2026 (1-133)
Th 3/1 Butler, Parable of the Sower, 2027 (134-295)

T 3/6 MacLeod, The Execution Channel, Part One-Three (1-184)
Th 3/8 MacLeod, The Execution Channel, Part Four-Five (185-285)

M 3/12-F 3/16 SPRING BREAK: NO CLASSES.

The Corporate Century?

T 3/20 Brin, Earth, Part I-IV (1-218)
Th 3/22 Brin, Earth, Part V-VIII (219-481)
F 3/23 CRITICAL ESSAY II due by 11:30 pm in CE Drop Box on course ANGEL site (attach as .rtf, .doc, .docx, or .pdf document, please).

T 3/27 Brin, Earth, Part IX-Afterword (482-667)
Th 3/29 Stephenson, Snow Crash, Ch. 1-16 (1-138)

T 4/3 Stephenson, Snow Crash, Ch. 17-43 (138-325)
Th 4/5 Stephenson, Snow Crash, Ch. 44-71 (326-468)

T 4/10 Morgan, Market Forces, Prologue-File #3 (1-289)
Th 4/12 Morgan, Market Forces, File #4-#5 (290-441)
F 4/13 FINAL PROJECT PROPOSAL due by 11:30 pm on discussion forum on course ANGEL site (attach as .rtf, .doc, .docx, or .pdf document, please).

The Asian Century?

T 4/17 Gibson, Neuromancer, Part One-Three (1-156)
Th 4/19 Gibson, Neuromancer, Part Four-Coda (157-271)
F 4/20 CRITICAL ESSAY III due by 11:30 pm in CE Drop Box on course ANGEL site (attach as .rtf, .doc, .docx, or .pdf document, please).

T 4/24 McHugh, China Mountain Zhang, China Mountain-Homework (1-208)
Th 4/26 McHugh, China Mountain Zhang, Daoist Engineering-Three Fragrances (209-310)

T 5/1 Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl, Ch. 1-18 (1-182)
Th 5/3 Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl, Ch. 19-Epilogue (183-359); course evaluations
F 5/4 CRITICAL ESSAY IV due by 11:30 pm in CE Drop Box on course ANGEL site (attach as .rtf, .doc, .docx, or .pdf document, please).

TBA Final Project presentations
F 5/11 FINAL PROJECT due by 11:30 pm in FP Drop Box on course ANGEL site (attach as .rtf, .doc, .docx, or .pdf document, please).

Will This Course Idea Seem So Cool in the Light of Day?

All of a sudden, I've got the urge to teach another version of my Science Fiction course. But this time, instead of trying to sample a small number of novels on a small number of topoi, I've got this idea for teaching near-future sci fi that both gets us thinking globally and reveals something about the preoccupations of the time periods in which they were first written and read. So far, I've come up with works like William Gibson's Neuromancer, Masamune Shirow/Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang, Cory Doctorow's For the Win, Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl. What am I not thinking of that would fit that kind of reading list? Particularly from pre-cyberpunk sci fi?