I've been thinking of writing my paper for this semester on religion and science. I have to write the paper "in the ballpark of sustainability" as my professor put it. I'm not really sure if that's what I want to do because it doesn't really have anything to do with my research interests, which I guess are literacy theories, digital literacy, technology, and maybe popular culture? So another idea I have is to research why science fiction always portrays a Utopian view of the future as a cityscape. Or something about science fiction that would allow me to watch star trek. How do science fiction writers suppose that the future came to be so great and sustainable without any apparent conservation? Now that's a question. But it doesn't really have anything to do with my research interests either, with the possible exception of the fact that I am generally more interested in popular culture and contemporary examples than with older texts. I would like to integrate popular culture into my studies because I find it more compelling.
I have a problem with texts that are overly analytical and theoretical and philosophical. I just realised how silly that sentence sounds. What I mean is, when I encounter a text that is steeped in numbers, with lots of complicated formulas and scientific things I don't understand, I find it frustrating. I doubt I will ever understand or be willing to really try to understand them. I would have to acquire a lot of specific knowledge first. So, the kinds of texts I prefer to encounter would be literary analysis texts, which require no numbers. I can say "Shakespeare has Viola cross dress very successfully: this is a subtle criticism of her sexuality," and all of my evidence is right there, easily verified, if easily refuted. The problem I have with texts that try to persuade on an emotional level in a similar fashion, without much qualifiable evidence, but rather appealing to a persons humanity or morality, is that it can be so easily refuted, particularly about important things such as sustainability, where facts are key to causing change. And this is similar to my problem with philosophy: they have tried to mingle empirical evidence with abstract traits like morality, which is difficult for me to understand, let alone believe. And it doesn't appear to help them be irrefutable anyway. Philosophers are the ones I understand the least, probably because it combines the worst of all my dilemmas. So where does this leave me? What can I study?
There are a fair amount of of dystopian sci-fi stories out there (mostly cyberpunk, I guess). If you were to go that route I could definitely dig up some examples to help you get started.
ReplyDeletePerhaps, apropos of literacy and popular culture, you could take a look at film adaptations of various literary works, and possibly novelizations of films. You could watch/read Coraline, the Lord of the Rings, and all manner of other things. That could be a fun topic to explore.