Course Schedule

Week One
R 8.18
Introduction

Week Two
T 8.23
Trip to the Moon (1902), Long Distance Wireless Photography (1908)
Reading: Melies, "Trick Effects" (SFFR, 2), Sobchack "What is Science Fiction"

W 8.24 Last day for registration

R 8.25
Reading: Telotte, "Introduction: The World of Science Fiction Film"

Week Three
T 8.30
Metropolis (1926)
Reading: Wells, "Mr. Wells Reviews a Current Film" (SFFR, 5) and Buñuel's "Metropolis" (SFFR 13)

R 9.1
Reading: Telotte, "The Seductive Text of Metropolis", Desser's "Race, Space and Class: The Politics of Cityscapes in Science-Fiction Films"

Week Four
T 9.6
Things to Come (1936)
Reading: Telotte, "Science Fiction Film: The Critical Context"

R 9.8
Reading: Borges, "Wells the Visionary" (SFFR, 16) and Telotte, "British Science Fiction" (excerpt from A Distant Technology)

Week Five
T 9.13
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Reading: "The Day the Earth Stood Still: An Interview with Robert Wise" (SFFR, 50), Lucas, "U-I Sci Fi" (SFFR, 68)

R 9.15
Reading: Telotte, "A Trajectory of the American Science Fiction Film"

Week Six
T 9.20
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Reading: Sontag's "The Imagination of Disaster" (SFFR 98)

R 9.22
Reading: Hoberman's "Nearer My Pod to Thee" (SFFR, 140) and Kaminsky's "Don Siegel on the Pod Society" (SFFR, 132)

Week Seven
T 9.27
Alphaville (1965)
Reading: Sarris "Alphaville" and Benedikt "Alphaville and its Subtext"

R 9.29
Reading: Keller, "Jean-Luc Godard"

Week Eight
T 10.4
The Middleton Family at the Fair
Telotte: "The New York World's Fair as SF"
Midterm

W 10.5 Last day to withdraw with a W

10.5-10.9 Fall Vacation

Week Nine
T 10.11
2001 (1968)
Reading: Clarke, "The Myth of 2001" (SFFR, 178), Freedman, "Kubrick's 2001 and the possibility of a science-fiction cinema"

R 10.13
Wessel, "Alien Encounters: Science Fiction and the Mysterium in 2001, Solaris and Contact" (SFFR, 181)

Week Ten
T 10. 18
Stalker (1979)
Reading: Interview with Tarkovsky, Tarkovsky at the Mirror, and Daney, Stalker review

R 10.20
Reading: Tyrkin, "In Stalker Tarkovsky foretold Chernobyl", Truppin's "And Then There Was Sound: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky"

Week Eleven
T 10.25
Blade Runner (1981)
Reading: Rickman's "They Did Sight Stimulation on My Brain: Philip K. Dick on Blade Runner"(SFFR, 270) and Wood, "Blade Runner" (SFFR, 280)

R 10.27
Reading: Bukatman, "Introduction: on Seeing, Science Fiction, and Cities" and selections from Blade Runner (BFI Modern Classics)

Week Twelve
T 11.1
The Thing (1982)
Reading: Trushell, "Of Monsters, Madmen and Murderers"

R 11.3
Reading: Cumbow, "Trust is a Tough Thing to Come By"

Week Thirteen
T 11.8
12 Monkeys (1995)
Reading: Ruben, "12 Monkeys, postmodernism, and the urban: toward a new method"

R 11.10
Reading: Del Rio's "The Remaking of La Jetee's Time-Travel Narrative"

Week Fourteen
T 11.15
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Reading: Kauffman, "The Manufactured Dream"

R 11.17
Reading: Sobchack's "Postfuturism and the End of Science Fiction", Bell "The End of Science Fiction"

11.22-11.27 Thanksgiving Vacation

Week Fifteen
T 11.29
Student's Choice Film Screening

R 12. 1 Last Day of Classes/ Final Paper Due