January 17, 2024: Spring Semester Previews: Intro to Sci Fi/Fantasy

[As thisnew semester gets underway, it does so amidst a particularly fraught moment forteaching & learning the Humanities. So for this week’s Semester Previewsseries I’ll highlight one thing from each of my courses that embodies the valueof the Humanities for us all—leading up to a special weekend post on MLK Dayand the Humanities!]

For lastyear’s Spring Previews series, Iwrote about my excitement to teach a new (to my syllabus) 21stcentury fantasy novel in this course, Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch (2011); for the first time ever I’m teaching Intro toSci Fi/Fantasy in back-to-back years, and am just as excited to teach Okorafor’sbook now that I’ve seen how well students respond to it. It’s also a great exampleof thepower of representation, of what it means to read a fantasy novel (a genrethat for too long was dominated, at least stereotypically, by Anglo charactersand authors alike) whose main characters are Nigerian and author is NigerianAmerican. That’s a crucial value of the Humanities, full stop. But I would addthat Okorafor’s novel likewise illustrates another and just as important stakeof both fantasy storytelling and a class like this—the power of theimagination. Her main character Sunny learns throughout the book just how muchthere is to the world beyond what she knew, and how much becoming part of allof it is necessary for her and the world’s future alike. I’d say the same forall of us, and reading and engaging speculative storytelling is one excitingand effective way to do just that.

Nextpreview tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?