One of you asked about taking down her blog. You certainly may, but could I suggest leaving them up for posterity? There was some good discussion going on.

I enjoyed the course. You are an interested group and had a lot of good things to say. Hope to see some of you again in future classes.

Student number, paper, final mark:

• 3013581, 86, A+
• 3120364, 80 (blogging), 65, B-
• 3129823, 80, A-
• 3142741, 0, F
• 3156518, 60, C
• 3170805, 75, B
• 3172162, 85, A
• 3173878, 0, F
• 3177101, 77, B+
• 3186988, 91, A
• 3194017, 79, A-
• 3195908, 78, B+
• 3200433, 70, B-
• 3220262, 78, B
• 3262291, 0, F
• 3271685, 91, A+

If you have a zero for something, that means I didn’t receive it. If you did in fact hand something in, let me know, preferably with the paper attached.

Papers are ready for pick-up (or will be very soon) in the Hum. and Lang. office. If you would like me to mail it to you, please send me your surface address.

If any of you decide to write the optional take-home, let me know soon so I don’t enter a final grade for you.  I am going away on the 30th of this month so you would have to send it to me electronically, by May 3rd please.

• 3013581, 95, 95
• 3120364, 74, 76
• 3129823, 89, 80
• 3142741, 0, 20
• 3156518, 74, 64
• 3170805, 74, 70
• 3172162, 87, 95
• 3173878, 0, 50
• 3177101, 87, 77
• 3186988, 89, 87
• 3194017, 87, 88
• 3195908, 79, 80
• 3200433, 74, 68
• 3220262, 77, 75
• 3262291, 85, 50
• 3271685, 89, 89

Take either a theme (egs. gender relations, communication, isolation) or a SFF trope (egs. black holes, aliens, dystopias) and discuss the ways in which it is used in eight of our texts (novels and/or short stories). Write a well-constructed essay of 6-8 pages.

I posted a pile o’ links to my other blog, and there is a ton of activity on Facebook around the issue.

We will discuss the readings on imperialism the following week, and both Simon’s presentation and the due date for the final paper have been postponed one week as well (thank you Simon!).

• Gregory Benford, “Exposures” (445-456): what do you make of the two sections of the story that deal with organized religion, the one a flashback to the protagonist’s youth and the other the conclusion of the story? Of the juxtaposition of the reading of the computer images with the protagonist’s domestic life?
• Greg Bear, “Schrödinger’s Plague” (477-484): so what would you have done? what do you think Dietrich and Krantz might have done?
• Howard Waldrop, “… the World, as we Know ‘t” (485-500): reflect on the title.
• Connie Willis, “Schwarzschild Radius” (689-704): is this as simple as a black hole being used as a metaphor for war?
• Paul Preuss, “Half-Life” (780-793): another story with WWI as an element; another story that compares the work of scientists to their domestic lives. This one is based on historical figures. What do you make of the coda? [And check out the image of Curie and family at Lisa W's]
• Michael Swanwick, “Periodic Table of Science Fiction“: wtf?
• Any commonalities here? in the ways in which scientific method is presented? themes? literary devices and tropes?

And did you know that Todd McFarlane, creator of Spawn, was born in Alberta? And Joe Shuster, the original artist who drew Superman, was from Toronto.