مکالمه ی اول

Listen to a conversation between a student and a literature professor.

How was that conference last weekend, Professor Miles?

reat! I heard some really terrific presentations, refreshing topics too that obviously you don’t usually hear too much about.

Why not?

Oh, well, you know, it’s a funny thing about academia, you’d think scholars would do research about every topic imaginable, but actually some authors, some genres, are not respected very much, so not very much is written about them, Gothic literature, detective novels.

But that’s what the conference was about?

Yeah, pretty much. It was kind of subversive I guess, but there is a whole wealth of knowledge out there just waiting to be explored. I find that really exciting.

Sure. Yeah.

Ah, anyway, you wanted to ask me about the final paper?

Yeah, which I see now ties into the theme of that conference since we are supposed to write about a book from one of those lesser genres, I was wondering…What about science fiction?

Sure. Though it’s a genre that’s actually getting more and more respect within academia. There was even a talk at the conference about Jack Vance.

Oh, he wrote Planet of Adventure, right?

Yeah, he is a well-researched, respected science-fiction writer. If you are interested in science fiction, you could look him up, that’d lead you to lots of other authors and lots of possibilities for your paper.

Great. Well, I’m relieved you think that’s a good genre to study. I’ll find a book that interests me and do the paper on that. It seems like most people assume that science fiction is kind of like, I don’t know, junk literature.

Yes, a lot of people do.

Yeah but, I’ve read some things and I think that some of it is really well written and it takes so much imagination to write sci-fi.

Well, careful though, there’s a difference between science fiction and sci-fi.

Student: What do you mean?

Sci-fi, that’s what you tend to see in films. It has all the spaceships and robots and it focuses on exotic technology, you know, wow factor, like special effects, at the expense of a well-written story. I think a lot of people don’t realize this and tend not to make a distinction.

Okay.

But true science fiction is much more intellectual than that. The story is very important. And even though it might take place in an imaginary world, and it might have exotic gadgets, the focus is on the plot.

Science fiction creates metaphors about our world, and well, what it means to be human. It’s meant to get people to think about real things like history and human behavior. That’s worthy of your time, but not sci-fi.

Great. Well, can I let you know next week which book I want to write about?

Sure.

d writing a wide variety of poetic styles.