class%20plan

1
class plan

• Genre review
• SF project presentations
• Final portfolio questions / E-submit
• break
• What makes a text effective SF?
• Is Battlestar Galactica effective?

2
what is this class about?

• genre

3
genre in the OED

• etymology F. genre kind see gender.
• 1. a. Kind sort style.
•     b. spec. A particular style or category of
  works of art esp. a type of literary work
  characterized by a particular form, style, or
  purpose.
• 2. a. A style of painting in which scenes and
  subjects of ordinary life are depicted.
•     b. attrib., as genre-painting, etc. Also
  transf., of music and literature.

4
how do categories work?

• Classic theory (Aristotle through Wittgenstein)
• categories are abstract containers
• things are in the same category if they have
  certain properties in common
• Prototype theory (Eleanor Rosch and the cognitive
  sciences)
• categories have best examples (i.e., prototypes)

5
genre in rhetorical genre theory

• Charles Bazerman
• Genre is only the visible realization of a
  complex of social and psychological dynamics.
• Amy Devitt
• Genres develop . . . because they respond
  appropriately to situations that writers
  encounter repeatedly.

6
genre in rhetorical genre theory (cont.)

• John Frow
• Far from being merely stylistic devices,
  genres create effects of reality and truth,
  authority and plausibility, which are central to
  the different ways the world is understood . .
  . (2).

7
where do conventions come from?

• American Psychological Association (APA) citation
  format
• Wilcox, R. V. (1991). Shifting roles and
  synthetic women in Star trek The next
  generation. Studies in Popular Culture, 13(2),
  53-65.
• Modern Language Association (MLA) citation format
• Wilcox, Rhonda V. "Shifting Roles and Synthetic
  Women in Star Trek The Next Generation." Studies
  in Popular Culture 13.2 (1991) 53-65.

8
diagramming genre
Genres in Frankenstein
science fiction
Structural dimensions of genre
9
guiding questions

• Where do genres come from and why do they form?
• How and why do they change over time?
• How do categories work cognitively and how do
  genres work as categories?
• What is genres relationship with social context
  and how do the two interact?
• What is the relationship between convention and
  creativity?