Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction: Challenging Genres -- TABLE OF CONTENTS -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- INTRODUCTION: Challenging Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction -- SF, SPECULATIVE FICTION, AND HONORING LITERACY -- SF AND SPECULATIVE FICTION: "A HARD AND FAST DEFINITION?" -- CAVEATS, MOTIFS, AND ASSORTED THREADS -- REFERENCES -- 1. A CASE FOR SF AND SPECULATIVE FICTION: An Introductory Consideration -- THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN: KNOWING SF WHEN YOU SEE IT -- SF AMONG THE GENRES: A BRIEF HISTORY -- Ancient Roots -- SF in the 1600s -- SF in the 1700s -- SF in the 1800s -- SF in the Early- to Mid-1900s -- New Wave SF of the 1960s, 1970s -- Late Twentieth Century SF Film and TV -- Recent SF and Beyond -- Critical Response and Scholarship of SF -- SELECTED ANNOTATED RESOURCE LIST -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- 2. SF AND SPECULATIVE NOVELS: Confronting the Science and the Fiction -- DEFINING SCIENCE FICTION -- Plausible Science and Technologies -- The Novum -- Big Picture: Impact on Society and Humans -- Nature of Science -- IN THE CLASSROOM -- Brahe and Kepler -- The Canal Controversy -- The intervening period between Lowell and Mariner 4 -- The Modern Era and Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars -- CONCLUSION -- REFERENCES -- 3. SF NOVELS AND SOCIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTATION: Examining Real World Dynamics through Imaginative Displacement -- THE SF NOVEL AS SOCIOLOGICAL THOUGHT EXPERIMENT -- SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS AND SOCIAL ISSUES -- Sex and Gender -- Race and Ethnicity -- Human Evolution -- Other Themes -- Miscellany: Human Relationships -- PAIRING SF NOVELS WITH SOCIAL RESEARCH -- MUSINGS ON THE NOVEL'S RELATION TO TEACHING SOCIOLOGY MORE GENERALLY -- REFERENCES -- 4. "PEEL[ING] APART LAYERS OF MEANING" IN SF SHORT FICTION: Inviting Students to Extrapolate on the Effects of Change -- CRITICAL LITERACY IN A CHANGING SOCIETY -- SF AND CRITICAL THINKING.

SHORT SF AND CRITICAL THINKING -- HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF THE SF SHORT STORY -- WHAT ETHICAL ISSUES SURROUND THE USES AND MISUSES OF TECHNOLOGY? -- Creators and Creations -- Death and Destruction -- HOW IS HUMANITY SHAPED BY POWER STRUCTURES? -- Science as a Threat and Lure -- Power as a Threat and Lure -- HOW COULD THE DEFINITION OF HUMANITY EVOLVE? -- Evolving/Redefining Humanity -- Redefining Notions of Self and Society -- WHY THESE QUESTIONS MATTER -- REFERENCES -- 5. READING ALIEN SUNS: Using SF Film to Teach a Political Literacy of Possibility -- SF FILM AND A NEW MODE OF CRITICAL LITERACY -- NOETIC SPACE AND THE FUTURE -- HOMO SACER AND BEHAVIORIST EDUCATION: KUBRICK'S DARK KOAN -- A HOME IN ANTICIPATORY SPACE? RE-TERRITORIALIZING THE FUTURE -- REFERENCES -- 6. SINGULARITY, CYBORGS, DRONES, REPLICANTS AND AVATARS: Coming to Terms with the Digital Self -- PROGRESS AS A PLEA FOR A TRANSHUMANIST FUTURE -- TRANSHUMANISM AS A MOVEMENT -- MASS CULTURE AND NEW MEDIA: THE OPIATE OF DYSTOPIA -- SINGULARITY AND THE DIGITAL SELF -- TEACHING TO UNDERSTAND THE SCIENCE IN "SCIENCE FICTION" -- REFERENCES -- 7. TROUBLING NOTIONS OF REALITY IN CAPRICA: Examining "Paradoxical States" of Being -- HOLOBANDS, MEDIA AND CYLONS -- AVATARS AND BORDER CROSSINGS -- HYPERREALITY -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- 8. "I TRY TO REMEMBER WHO I AM AND WHO I AM NOT": The Subjugation of Nature and Women Represented in The Hunger Games -- SOCIAL CRITICISM AND YOUNG ADULT DYSTOPIAN FICTION -- ECOFEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM -- "IF I CAN FORGET THEY'RE PEOPLE KILLING THEM WILL BE NO DIFFERENT AT ALL" -- "SOMEHOW IT ALWAYS COMES BACK TO COAL AT SCHOOL": A PROGRAM OF DEHUMANIZING OTHERS -- "IF YOU PUT ENOUGH PRESSURE ON COAL IT TURNS TO PEARLS": REGENDERING KATNISS -- "I CAN'T SHAKE THE FEELING THAT I'M BEING WATCHED CONSTANTLY": THE PERILS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN A SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY.

BEYOND "THE BASTARD STEPSON OF REAL LITERATURE" -- REFERENCES -- 9. "IT'S A BIRD … IT'S A PLANE … IT'S … A COMIC BOOK IN THE CLASSROOM?": Truth: Red, White, and Black as Test Case for Teaching Superhero Comics -- A SHORT HISTORY OF SUPERHERO COMIC BOOKS -- TRUTH: RED, WHITE, AND BLACK -- WHO DOES CAPTAIN AMERICA REPRESENT? -- FINAL THOUGHTS -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- 10. THE ENDURING POWER OF SF, SPECULATIVE AND DYSTOPIAN FICTION: Final Thoughts -- "DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL": THERE'S A REASON CAPTAIN AMERICA WEARS A MASK -- CALCULATING THE CORPORATE STATES OF AMERICA: REVISITING VONNEGUT'S PLAYER PIANO -- EDUCATION IN THE CORPORATE STATES OF AMERICA -- Democrats and Republicans: Two Sides of the Same Corporate Coin -- Education in the Corporate States of America -- WHENCE COME "THE LEFTOVERS"?: SPECULATIVE FICTION AND THE HUMAN CONDITION -- Our Speculative World, "Off-to-the-Side" -- LE GUIN'S "THE ONES WHO WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS": ALLEGORY OF PRIVILEGE -- DIVERSITY AND THE RISE OF MAJORITY-MINORITY SCHOOLS -- Confronting Diversity, Equity, and Cultural Assumptions -- THE EDUCATION GAMES: REFORM AS DOUBLESPEAK -- "One Need Not Swallow Such Absurdities as This" -- High-stakes Standardized Tests -- Common Core State Standards -- Expertise in Education -- The Ends-Justify-the-Means Logic -- SEPARATE, UNEQUAL … AND DISTRACTED -- X-Men and The Hunger Games: Allegory as Unmasking -- Separate, Unequal … and Distracted -- TIME AS CAPITAL: THE RISE OF THE FRANTIC CLASS -- The Frantic Distraction of Surviving -- Frantic Students, Frantic Workers: The Rise of the Frantic Class -- CLONES, ASSEMBLY-LINE CAPITALISM, AND WAGE-SLAVES -- "Such a World Will Come to Pass" -- NOTES -- REFERENCES -- AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES.