Using Science Fiction to Teach History (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Distant Future)

I have been reluctant to use fiction in my courses.  This is despite the fact that my own high school and college educations introduced me to most of the fiction I know; as a recalcitrant and noncommittal reader of non-nonfiction, I still find it difficult to get through even the best literary prose.  But the diminutive and terrifying Sharia Isenhour got me to read Crime and Punishment and Cry the Beloved Country in 10th grade—this was a woman who was utterly distinguished by a mien somewhere between drill sergeant and Communist re-educator. My college courses, at a public university not much different from the one where I currently teach, demanded an ambitious diet of literature; at …

Apocalypse on the Lower East Side: Zone One Zombies

I am sick of zombies. Once upon a time, I had a Dawn of the Dead poster hanging on my apartment wall and would watch Shaun of the Dead a half-dozen times. Zombies had their own little corner in my pop-culture collective.  Not a big one, but enough real estate in my heart that if I stumbled upon a late night film featuring a shambling, half-rotted actor in search of “braaaainnns” and clunky social commentary, I might have settled in for the duration. It’s amazing how fast we can ruin these things for ourselves. This year’s zeitgeist has decided that zombies are the new thing for 2012, and they are everywhere.  In fact, it seems all the things I used to love are “cool” …