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Sometimes you just gotta crow. Mind you, this student wrote this after I gave her an unfavorable grade. I didn’t actually deduct for absenteeism, because she was remarkably bright. She never turned in her final paper. Thems the rules…
This is Student X, and I was in your Afro-futurism class last quarter. I
wanted to write to tell you that I feel bad, both guilt-wise and selfishly, that
I missed so much of the class last quarter. I had some pretty severe
family/personal issues occur and so I was pretty much a ghost student in my
classes for the last few months of spring. I just wanted to say that your class
was one of the coolest and most invigorating I have taken in college. I hope you don’t construe my absences as a lack of interest. I have read Parable of the Sower
since (turns out that one of my best friends is a huge fan) and I have really
re-considered a lot of the sci-fi I had read previously, especially things that
are more cyber-punk. I hadn’t even realized it until later, but Snow Crash,the book I quoted on my blog, stars a half-black half-Japanese character that fits very well with the remix aesthetic we talked about. Mostly I just wanted to thank you for offering such a neat class in the midst of what can sometimes be a crushingly prosaic and traditional curriculum. Your class is one of a few that has not just added soundbytes of knowledge but has actually changed
the way I think, and I feel I need to say thank you for that. I hope your next
semester entertains and enlightens someone else as much as it has me, and I hope
your new baby is healthy and fun (and presumably not an ooloi).
My summer class is moving right along. It’s an A-term class, which means it packs in a full quarter’s work into four weeks. I’ll do the math for you: four days a week, two hours a day. Yikes. On our plate this quarter:
Gibson’s Neuromancer (quintessential “cyberpunk” novel)
Stephenson’s Snow Crash (quintessential mockery of cyberpunk novel)
Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (quintessential precursor to cyberpunk novel)
One deliciously homemade course packet with short-fiction and cultural theory.
If it isn’t already obvious, this class is all about cyberspace, cyborgs, posthumans, and leather-clad hackers. That and a few other fancy academic ideas I’m too tired (and smart) to include here.
With the exception of one semi-hostile student who perpetually feels the need to polemicize almost everything I say, they’re a fun bunch. Case in point would be today’s “discussion leader” who, addressing William Gibson’s cyberpunk aesthetic, actually came to class dressed as a cyberpunk: black leather, spiked hair, combat boots, mirrorshades and all. Way cool. Even cooler: she’s a visiting English major from Crunchyville University…my future employer!
