Literary Kinds course

  In class I was personally struck by the suggestion of Anne Dalke to follow parodies of genres. Not only does it sound interesting, but, in studying parodies I feel that one can better understand the "parodied."

I think it would be an interesting idea for us to study serial fiction as a genre.

For the second half of the semester, I think it would be really interesting to look at fan fiction as an "emerging" genre.  I use the quotation marks because Professor Taylor once had us read a work for class that was a continuation of Chaucer's notoriously-unfinished Canterbury Tales, and doesn't that count as a work of fan fiction?  There are also additional Sherlock Holmes mysteries, suspiciously not written by Sir Conan Doyle and Pride

We began with some questions that were posted online for Nicole and Jen:
Did either of them feel any worry about posting their work on the internet, where future employers could find it?
Nicole didn't feel much concern but wondered if she should, mentioning her middle-school Myspace that's still online; Jen plans to work in the digital humanities, and so feels it's great for her to have an online presence. Nicole adds that most people's names are all over the Internet in places they didn't put it on purpose (Bi-Co articles, etc.).

This is not just about Star Wars, Dune, or exploding spaceships. This is not just about scantily-clad princesses in high-tech towers, Captain Kirk, or the robot apocalypse. Science-fiction is a genre that encompasses almost every other genre there is. It crosses mediums: television, radio, video games, books, graphic novels, comics, movies... It can be about the future or the past, our humanity or lack-there-of, or the comedy or drama or dramatic comedy of our lives.