Discussion Questions on Jameson's "Progress Versus Utopia..."

In part II of the essay (p.286-289) Jameson outlines some important ways in which we might think about the effects of defamiliarization in science fiction. Summarize his argument here and try to connect it with the Ballard text (or any of the other texts on the course).

Jameson suggests that the real function of science fiction is ‘to dramatize our incapacity to imagine the future’ (p.288-9). What do you understand by this claim? Do you find it troubling? Persuasive?

Discussion Questions for "The Voices of Time"

Find out about J.G. Ballard’s biographical details.

Think about the way the story is composed. It is assembled from a lot of different documents and sources. What is the effect of this? Can you make an analogy with any other literary works?

Comment on the landscapes of the story. What are they like? Are they just ‘backgrounds’ or do they have another function within the narrative?

Focus on ‘distance markers’ and techniques of estrangement. How is this story different to realist fiction? Which passages or ideas do you find difficult to understand?

Discussion Questions for 'Speech Sounds'

Find out about Octavia Butler’s background. Does this have any impact on the story?
When and how do we become aware that this is an estranged world?
Some things are very different, transformed or simply eliminated, some things are only changed slightly. Is there a logic which determines what stays the same and what is lost?
Highlight some passages where Butler deals with the complexities of non-verbal communication
How does the story deal with traditional gender roles? Is it convincing?
Think about the emotions or affects of anger and envy as they are portrayed in the story

Angelus Novus

IX

My wing is ready for flight,
I would like to turn back.
If I stayed timeless time,
I would have little luck.


Mein Flügel ist zum Schwung bereit,
ich kehrte gern zurück,
denn blieb ich auch lebendige Zeit,
ich hätte wenig Glück.

Gerherd Scholem,
‘Gruss vom Angelus’

A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

From On the Concept of History - Walter Benjamin

Absolute Danger

The future can be anticipated only in the form of absolute danger. It is that which breaks absolutely with constituted normality and can thus announce itself, present itself, only under the species of monstrosity – Derrida, exergue to Of Grammatology

Discussion Questions for 'Darkness'

Think about the position of the speaker/poet/observer.
What is the significance of the one dog that remains faithful?
What are some of the metaphorical associations of darkness?
Consider the portrayal of human communities in the poem
Why do you think Byron wrote this poem? What feelings does it express?

Discussion Questions for 'Homelanding'

Who is the narrator? Who is the addressee?
Can you relate the story to the reading ‘Paradigm’?
How does the story make ‘normal’ activities strange?
Think about the story’s descriptions of gender
Is the effect of estrangement or defamiliarization consistent?
Where does the phrase ‘take me to your leader’ come from?
Two images run though the story – redness and mirrors. Why? Are they linked?

Quotations: Baudrillard and Derrida

Prophesying catastrophe is incredibly banal. The more original move is to assume that it has already occurred - Jean Baudrillard

The future belongs to ghosts - Jacques Derrida

Quotation: J.G. Ballard on Catastrophe Fiction


“I believe that the catastrophe story, whoever may tell it, represents a constructive and positive act by the imagination rather than a negative one, an attempt to confront the terrifying void of a patently meaningless universe by challenging it at its own game, to remake zero by provoking it in every conceivable way.” - J.G. Ballard