The final course project

 The final course project will be a paper that extends the course discussion. The paper should be 5-7 double-spaced pages (double-spacing with normal margins and 10- to 12-point font size). 

One suggested topic is a longer reflection paper, which I recommend for students who have a strong and clear interest in a particular theme that they would like to analyze in more detail. You may choose to email me with your idea and ask for advice about how to proceed. 

The recommended topic for the final project is to read an additional text of Slavic SF and write an analysis of that text based upon what we have learned in the course. If you choose this route, please integrate at least two secondary sources that analyze this text to supplement the ideas in your paper, and these sources should be cited informally in your paper in a way that the instructor could track them down if necessary. Credible analysis from a website is fine, and/or you can also do a database search for scholarly articles (if you don’t know how to do the latter, please consult a reference librarian in one of the campus libraries: they are more than happy to help you). 

You may write informally, that is, not in the style of a formal research paper (although a formal style is also perfectly acceptable). Please note, however, that there is a difference between informal prose and writing that is stylistically unclear. Refer to the descriptions in this general grading rubric to help you understand that difference; you may also choose to work backwards from this rubric to target the grade you’re looking for and/or read through your draft to evaluate for yourself your own work (and make changes as needed).  

  

An annotated list of suggested works is below. Some of these are available in on-campus libraries or perhaps even in electronic form during the pandemic while others would need to be ordered. Some may be available as pdfs for free download on the internet (but be careful especially of Russian sites that might transmit viruses with the download). Several texts are available as pdfs here on our Canvas site: Čapek’s play The White Plague, Bogdanov’s novella Red Star, and the Strugatsky brothers' novellas Hard to be a God and Definitely Maybe. Another work not on the list is also possible, but please let me know which one you’d like to analyze. 

Your final project is due by noon on Monday, 5/3: please submit via Canvas. Note that this is a firm deadline since there will be limited time to read the projects and submit final course grades. 

  

Please remember that an A is the highest grade that the instructor can give. If a grade of A is your goal, submit a paper that unambiguously deserves it.  

Note: your reflection paper comprises 20% of your final course grade. 

  

Suggested works 

  

Czech SF  

Karel Čapek, Krakatit (1922) 

A chemical engineer invents a powerful explosive, which he names krakatit after the Krakatoa volcano. Much of the novella revolves around the delirium and existential crisis that the chemist undergoes after inventing the explosive. 

  

Karel Čapek, Absolute at Large (1922) 

An engineer has invented a device that provides limitless energy, but the device has a mysterious and disastrous side-effect. 

  

Karel Čapek, White Plague (1937) 

A play about a mysterious and fatal leprosy-like disease that infects only people older than forty-five. The disease starts spreading in a Europe on the brink of all-out war. [A pdf of this play is available on our Learn website] 

  

Michal Ajvaz, The Other City (1993) 

This book is a surrealist (or magical-realist), fantastical, philosophical hymn to Prague. The protagonist encounters another city that co-exists, or lurks, in the same space as Prague but contains magical happenings and creatures. Not recommended for those who don’t enjoy surrealist or magical-realist prose! 

  

Jaroslav Kalfař, Spaceman of Bohemia (2017) 

This entertaining novella is written by a Czech-American author and came out to critical acclaim recently. It is written through the eyes of the protagonist, who is the first astronaut from the independent Czech Republic. He is sent alone on a mission to a cloud of intergalactic dust to inspect its composition, and it's there that he mights an unlikely creature who becomes his friend.   

  

Polish SF  

Stanisław Lem, Eden (1959) 

A starship crew crash-land on an alien planet that they name Eden. They come into contact with an alien civilization that they try to understand. 

  

Stanisław Lem, The Invincible (1964) 

A powerful and heavily armed spaceship, called the Invincible, lands on the planet Regis III to investigate the loss of its sister ship. The crew of the ship encounter, and attempt to understand, a swarm of quasi-alive, self-replicating nano-machines, which were apparently left behind by an alien civilization that died out long ago. 

  

Stanisław Lem, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (1961) 

Set in the distant future, the novel tells the story of a bureaucratic agent trapped in a dystopic military bunker that has been sealed off from the world for centuries. This is a Kafkaesque, magical-realist dystopia where nothing is as it seems to be. 

  

Stanisław Lem, Fiasco (1986) 

An advanced spaceship is sent from Earth to make contact with an alien civilization that has been detected on a planet around a distant star. Lem’s beloved space-pilot Pirx makes his last – and fateful – appearance in a fictional work. 

  

Russian SF 

Alexander Bogdanov, Red Star (1908) 

An early SF novel about a communist society on Mars. A scientist-revolutionary travels to Mars to learn about this utopian society and to tell the Martians of his own society on Earth. 

  

Alexei Tolstoy, Engineer Garin and His Death Ray (1926) 

An engineer invents a laser death ray and uses it to try to take over the world. This novel was written decades before lasers were invented and is by the same influential Soviet-Russian SF author who wrote Aelita. 

  

Alexander Belyaev, The Air Merchant/Seller (1929) 

An evil capitalist is stealing the Earth’s atmosphere and planning on selling the fresh air that he has stored in order to take over the world. 

  

Ivan Yefremov, Andromeda (1957) 

This novel depicts a classic communist utopia set in the distant future. Its publication represented a major milestone in the history of Soviet SF. 

  

Strugatsky brothers, Hard to Be a God (1964) 

This novel features Anton, an operative from a future Earth, on a mission to speed the civilizational development of a medieval-level society on another planet. The operation must be done secretly: Anton cannot reveal his origins. Another possible project would be to watch and analyze the acclaimed (but frankly disgusting) film version of this work, directed by Alexei German. 

  

Strugatsky brothers, Monday Begins on a Saturday (1965) 

This novel is set in a fictional town in Northern Russia and concerns a top-secret research institute into magic and sorcery. It is filled with allusions to Russian folklore. It has been called the Russian equivalent of Harry Potter, but it was written forty years earlier. 

  

Strugatsky brothers, Definitely Maybe (1974) 

A mysterious force, perhaps of alien origin, impedes the work of scientists in fields ranging from biology to mathematical linguistics. 

  

Strugatsky brothers, The Doomed City (1975) 

This novel is set in a mysterious world where powerful but unseen aliens seemingly run a sociological experiment. This is considered one of the more philosophical and dark works by the Strugatsky brothers, and it was their own favorite work. 

  

Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra (1992) 

This is a dark novel that satirizes the Soviet space program as well as an obsession with heroic sacrifice to promote an ideology. 

  

Tatiana Tolstaya, The Slynx (2000) 

This is a post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel by a celebrated contemporary Russian author. The novel is filled with allusions to Russian literature. 

  

Vladimir Sorokin, Ice (2002) 

This novel is set in the near future. The Tunguska meteor has provided a mysterious cult with a material that can “make people’s heart speak.” This is the first book in a trilogy. 

  

Dmitry Glukhovsky, Metro 2033 (2005) 

This novel is set in a post-apocalyptic Moscow where survivors of an atomic war fight for existence in the mazes of the metro. 

  

Vladimir Sorokin, Day of the Oprichnik (2006) 

This novel is set in the near future when the Russian Empire has been revived. It follows a government thug (an oprichnik) through his day. 

  

British SF (that both honors and parodies Soviet-Russian SF) 

Adam Roberts, Yellow Blue Tibia 

At the end of WWII, Stalin assembles a group of SF writers and commissions a fantastical novel about alien invasion. Forty years later, the plot of the novel starts coming true.