Literature Seminar for Freshman

Are we alone in the universe? And--if we are alone--why are we alone? Contemplating our place in the cosmos forces us to rethink the human condition: what it means to be alive and to be with others--how we alienate ourselves and create distance, or how we long for connection. Space is a place of discovery--a site of human striving, resilience, and ingenuity--but it is also a place of isolation, disconnection, and even violence. Space is an escape: it is a frequent place of fantasy projection, as well as a "Plan B" we dream of when we are anxious about climate change and the sustainability of living on earth. But where should our priorities be in the Anthropocene--at home, or in the stars? In this course, we'll study space odysseys (William Blake, Stanley Kubrick, Georges Méliès, John Milton, Christopher Nolan, Percy Shelley, Voltaire), poems to the stars (Eratosthenes, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Adrienne Rich, Tracy K. Smith), "space music" (Gustav Holst, NASA's data sonification project), the aesthetics of outer space (NASA's art program, orbital habitat designs, James Webb/Hubble Space Telescope photographs), space-colonialism (Ray Bradbury, Samuel Delany), eco-devastation (space junk, HP Lovecraft), and robot/alien-human relations (Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, HG Wells). We will spend time in Special Collections and (hopefully) at the Fossett Laboratory for Virtual Planetary Exploration. Students will design their own "Voyager Golden Records," curating a group of cultural artifacts to send to the stars. Is space the place where the sciences and the humanities can meet? The Greeks thought their stories were writ large in the sky. We still slip our stories in between the stars. Course is for first-year, non-transfer students only.
Course Attributes: EN H; FYS; BU Hum; BU Eth; BU BA; AS HUM; FA HUM; AR HUM

Literature Seminar for Freshman

ENGLISH LITERATURE 159

Section 01