English III Syllabus
Science, Technology, and Literature (Honors)
2023-2024
“We, too, are made of wonders, of great / and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds, / of a need to call out through the dark.”
— Ada Limón, “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa” (2023)
Course Overview
In this course, we will explore the intersection of science and literature from the ancient to the modern world. We will begin with more innocuous inquiries, such as how we come to know things about the world around us and how scientific thinkers and writers over time have shaped our understanding of the universe. In time, we will wrestle with more complex, and often more unsettling, questions about how the sciences shape and are shaped by politics, religion, industry, the media, and public discourse and opinion: Is all scientific inquiry political? Is all scientific progress “good”? Just because we can research or create something, should we? How can we ensure that we conduct scientific research in an ethical way, respecting the rights and well-being of those affected by it? How do science fiction and nature writing help us grapple with these questions? Most of all, why take a humanities-based approach to science? By tackling these questions this year, we will learn why the humanities matter more than ever — that is, in the age of ChatGPT and Deepfake technology, how they help us become the active, curious, independent, and moral thinkers needed to combat the darker forces of our world.
The course will focus on these essential skills, which students need to excel in their future studies and in any profession or trade:
Oral, written, visual, and digital literacies and communication skills;
Critical reading and analysis skills;
Techniques for effective collaboration;
Habits of mind that reinforce creativity, curiosity, and innovation.
We will begin the course with Lucretius’s On the Nature of the Universe, one of the earliest extant theories of atomism. This unit will focus on two central questions, one literary and one historical: What makes poetry a useful conduit for scientific knowledge, and how did Lucretius’s text shape the thinking of the leading minds of the Renaissance and the period known as the “Scientific Revolution”? Following our unit on Lucretius, we will directly engage with the work of these thinkers — including Francis Bacon, Margaret Cavendish, Galileo Galilei, Michel de Montaigne, and William Shakespeare — to examine the intersection of science, magic, religion, and politics during this period.
In the second semester, we will turn to the Enlightenment and the Romantic period, reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the work of Romantic poets to wrestle with ethical questions about technological advancement, industrialization, and the exploitation of nature. We will then delve into the genres of science fiction and nature writing. To that end, we will analyze the work of early science-fiction writers like Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury; the work of contemporary science-fiction writers featured in Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang’s recent edited collection The Way Spring Arrives; and the work of current U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón. Students will also complete an individual research project on the ethical implications of a major scientific development in the twentieth century; topics range from the development and use of chemical and nuclear weapons (e.g. The Manhattan Project) to medical racism (e.g. Henrietta Lacks or the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment).
To end the course, we will read Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun and selections from Franny Choi’s poetry collection Soft Science — texts that reflect on the growing presence of artificial intelligence in our lives and, in doing so, reimagine what it means to be human. Along the way, we will supplement our course texts with critical analysis of films and television series, such as Tony Gilroy’s Andor, Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan’s Westworld, Graham Yost’s Silo, and the recent adaptations of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Frank Herbert’s Dune.
It bears repeating that this is an Honors seminar, meaning that students are expected to complete a substantial amount of reading, writing, and research this year. Students will engage with a range of poems, short stories, plays, novels, and essays from across literary history aimed at deepening students’ understanding of the sciences. These texts will springboard class conversation and writing assignments. At this level, it is assumed that students are proficient in the basic conventions of academic essays and English grammar, and our study of literature will be an occasion to further refine these skills.
Most homework will be reading assignments, often accompanied by analytical reflections and essays to help students understand the text’s central ideas, themes, and questions. Thus, most classes will consist of “close reading” seminars. Students will be expected to come to class prepared to ask and answer questions about the readings.
While class discussion will be a central feature of virtually every class, I will occasionally implement alternative discursive approaches, such as debates or collaborative presentations, to keep things fresh and challenging. No matter the form, the goal of these activities is to help students become more comfortable with sharing their thoughts in a public setting. For some, this is difficult, even frightening. Once a shy student myself, I know that confidence, like algebra, can be learned. If we have established a healthy, non-competitive classroom environment, students will embrace “mistakes” or logical wrong turns. The point of humanities discourse is not to dominate competing views with some final word on the subject — we will never stop talking about The Tempest or the moral implications of dropping atomic weapons on civilians. The point is that by sharing our ideas and enlarging the conversation — by encouraging each other to share good-faith and credible insights about the texts — we all learn.
Course Topics & Readings
The reading schedule for this course will be posted in each unit’s module on Canvas every Friday by 5pm. The course texts listed below are physical books that I will provide students on the first day of class. All other texts for the course, indicated by an asterisk (*) below, (e.g. short stories, poetry, films, articles, essays, videos, or podcasts) will be available on Canvas downloadable PDFs or weblinks.
Students must bring their texts to class each day in order to participate in class discussions. Some texts will be substantive and require a few weeks to read. Others will be much shorter and can thus be read in a short time frame. Please read the assigned pages before class in order to facilitate discussion.
Course Introduction
(*) Ada Limón, selected poetry
Unit 1: Science in the Ancient World
Summer Reading: Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve
Lucretius, On the Nature of the Universe
(*) Plato, “Allegory of the Cave” & Arthur Herman, selections from The Cave and The Light
Unit 2: Renaissance Science
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing-World and selected poetry
(*) Selected writings by Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Michel de Montaigne
Unit 3: Enlightenment Science & Romanticism
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
(*) Selected poems by William Wordworth & Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Unit 4: Science in the Twentieth Century
(*) Selected short stories by Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury
(*) Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang, selections from The Way Spring Arrives
(*) Individual research projects
Unit 5: Artificial Intelligence
Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun
(*) Franny Choi, selections from Soft Science
(*) Selected films and television series
Unit 6: Science Fiction on Screen
(*) Selected films and television series
Content Warning: This course deals with topics such as discrimination, forms of extreme violence, racism, and genocide, which are emotionally challenging and difficult to confront. If students find the material upsetting, I encourage them to talk to me about it. However, bear in mind that a liberal arts education is designed not only to confront us with historical realities that are often discomforting or that challenge our worldviews, but also to encourage us to engage thoughtfully with difficult content.