A little light spring break reading

I was browsing Children's Literature in Education and came upon an article that reminded me of our discussions in the last two weeks:  Colonizing Bodies: Corporate Power and Biotechnology in Young Adult Science Fiction. In addition to being an interesting piece of scholarship, the reference list has some YA science fiction that sounds interesting!

Week 5: Intertextuality, Science Fiction, Marxism & Feed

This week we'll be drawing on Marxist theory, intertextual connections, and criteria for evaluating science fiction to inform our readings of Feed by M.T. Anderson. Remember that we'll be working on-line for the first part of the week and then will have our face-to-face discussion on Thursday.

For Tuesday (on-line):

• Watch the Frontline "Merchants of Cool" documentary on-line. (~1 hour)
• Write a short blog post that poses a question or suggests a idea you would like to discuss related to "Merchants of Cool", marketing to YAs, or a related topic. (If someone else has already started a strand related to what you want to discuss, just write a comment, rather than doing a new post.) Be sure to label it "Merchants of Cool" so others can find it.
• Respond to at least 2 other people's posts by Thursday. 

I'll be curious to hear what people think the pros and cons of this on-line discussion format are!

For Thursday (face-to-face class):

• Come prepared to discuss Feed
• Critical reflection paper due. 
• Use Marxist theory as a lens to read Feed. For ideas, either consult Tyson or the slides from the presentation. (I'll post them to Angel as soon as I get them from the group who presented.) 
• OR
• Do an intertextual reading in which you read a specific marketing campaign or a segment from "The Merchants of Cool" against Feed. Remember that you'll need to establish the connection, but also make an argument that reading one helps us see something new in the other.