Science Fiction Narrative: Encounter with Cultural Change or Cultural Difference
In this assignment, students will create an original work that 1) stages an encounter across cultural difference or cultural change and 2) guides the reader/viewer/listener on how to interpret this encounter or trains them to perceive the ways in which the encounter matters/is meaningful.
This original work can take any creative form. For instance the narrative could be a short work of creative fiction, a poem, or a first-person essay; a zine or comic strip; a short narrative film or a photo essay; or a podcast or a song. I’m open to any format that you are interested in. The story you are telling can be purely fictional, or it can be based on a nonfictional encounter. If the creative work tells the story of a nonfictional encounter, it must still engage with this material through a creative (as opposed to scholarly) genre.
Your creative work should put some of the themes, methods, anthropological principles, and concerns that have emerged in our course into practice. What I mean by this is that your creative work should be doing something anthropological. For instance you might experiment with creating a narrative of a cross-cultural encounter that does not end in conquest or one in which differences are not mapped onto a hierarchy; you might use your creative work to continue to explore themes of language and communication; or you might create a polyvocal story where the anthropologist’s voice is decentered. Alternately you might try to create an ethnographic “collection” or archive that is not rooted in principles of white superiority or salvage ethnography; or you might make a creative work that illustrates how themes from a society’s myths and folklore motivate or give meaning to its interactions with other societies.
Upload Instructions
Please combine your artist’s statement and creative work into a single PDF file and upload it to Canvas. Please arrange the file so that the artist’s statement appears first, and the creative work appears second. If your creative project cannot be formatted as a PDF (video or audio file), please upload 2 separate files and leave a comment to draw my attention to that fact.
Detailed written feedback is available by request. If you would like to receive written feedback, post a comment to Canvas after submitting your final draft.
Project Components and Timeline
Proposal (Due Sunday, March 31)
Artist’s Statement (Due Monday, April 29 before midnight):
In 2-4 double-spaced pages, explain what your work tries to achieve both artistically and anthropologically. What anthropological themes does it engage with? Why are those themes interesting or important to you? How do they inform your creative project and/or how does your creative work explore or develop these themes? Be specific: relate your work to course concepts and course media. On the artistic side, what do you hope the viewer/reader/listener experiences as they engage with your work? Where are you hoping to take them, emotionally or intellectually? If you were aiming for a specific aesthetic or inspired by another work, please explain.
The artist’s statement should connect specific elements of your story, or your storytelling choices, to your anthropological or artistic goals. For instance, you might discuss how your world-building choices relate to an anthropological theme and explain how the story’s structure helps to create a specific experience for the viewer/reader/listener.
Creative Work (Due Monday, April 29 before midnight):
As stated above, the genre/format of this work is up to you. So is the length, to a point. After the proposal stage, we will discuss what an appropriate length would be based on the artistic medium. I will evaluate your creative work based on its correspondence to your artist’s statement, creativity, and completeness (rubric to come).
Previously submitted assignment:
Creative Work:
For this assignment, I want to write a short story in the style of a fiction podcast. The
narrative will be based upon an encounter between two distinct cultures, one terrestrial
and the other extraterrestrial. I chose to write about this because with recent news
about life existing outside of Earth I’ve been intrigued by the possible cultural
differences if we were to make contact with them. Through the encounter I will write
about, I aim to explore themes of cultural exchange, communication barriers, and the
impact of preconceived notions of intercultural understanding.
Anthropological Principles:
My narrative will draw from anthropological principles of cultural relativism and the
significance of myth and folklore in shaping societal interactions. I plan to incorporate
elements inspired by Le Guin’s approach to weaving myths into political narratives,
aiming to undo traditional power dynamics and challenge hierarchical structures often
present in cross-cultural encounters.
Specifics of Creation:
My story will be written following the journey of a human ambassador sent to establish
diplomatic relations with an alien civilization on a distant planet. My story will follow a
series of encounters and interactions, the protagonist will struggle with their own
cultural biases and assumptions while navigating the complexities of communication
with the alien species.
I plan to create a detailed plot outline with key narrative functions and character arcs,
ensuring a cohesive storyline that effectively explores the themes of cultural change
and difference. Additionally, I will conduct research into anthropological studies on
intercultural communication and cultural exchange to inform the portrayal of the
encounters within the story accurately.
Conclusion:
Through this creative assignment, I aim to not only produce an engaging fiction
narrative but also to engage with anthropological principles of cultural relativism and
the significance of myths and folklore in shaping societal interactions. By exploring the
complexities of cross-cultural encounters through the lens of speculative fiction, I hope
to contribute to a deeper understanding of the dynamics of cultural change and
difference.
Notes left by teacher on the assignment above:
I’m confused: will the final product be a podcast or a story? If figuring out how to communicate across languages and cultures will be important to the story arc, I recommend you revisit the materials from week 8 (both in-class discussions/lecture + assigned media) to see if any of the anthropological themes we explored that week would be relevant to your work. You say you plan to take a LeGuinean approach to the encounter: will one of the groups’ myths or folklore play an important role in how the story plays out? What kinds of biases and assumptions will your narrator struggle with? In what ways will communication be complex? Some of the writing in the proposal is too vague/general–as a heads up, the writing in the final project (creative work + artist’s statement) will need to be clearer, more descriptive, and more specific to earn a passing grade. For instance, how will the story “engage with…cultural relativism”? What will “the significance of myths and folklore in shaping societal interactions” actually be in your story? Additionally you will need to connect the anthropological themes to specific works we studied in class.
Week 8 work was based on “Language, Power, and Time: How does language shape what we imagine and experience?” My vision for this is having a langue barrier between us and the aliens. In addition I also think part of the story should include a backstory and a folk tale on how there are stories of aliens coming to the earth and taking over, but having a misconspection.