Science Fiction (Eric Rabkin)

I am retiring this blog.  Eight posts in twenty months, and not many more pageviews than that.

I am in the process of listening to several courses by the Teaching Company that are out of print.  Since they do not appear on TTC's website, I have nowhere to note my observations about them.  But I have this blog, so there ya go.  The first course is Science Fiction by Eric Rabkin, which consists of eight 45-minute lectures:
Lecture 1: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Emergence of Science Fiction
Lecture 2: Jules Verne and the Popular Passion for Science
Lecture 3: H.G. Wells and Science Fiction Parables of Social Criticism
Lecture 4: Pulp Culture, World War II, and the Ascendancy of American Science Fiction
Lecture 5: And the Winner Is…Robert A. Heinlein
Lecture 6: Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. LeGuin, and the Expansion of Science Fiction
Lecture 7: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Modern Science Fiction Film
Lecture 8: New Wave, Cyberpunk, and Our Science Fiction World

I was very impressed that even after completing the Drout course, I still learned quite a few things, even about the very same topics that Drout had covered (Frankenstein, pulp fiction, the "golden age", Heinlein, Bradbury, LeGuin).  Nevertheless, he seems to cover a lot less ground.  Drout's course is only marginally longer (1 more hour), yet covers much more.  Two big gaps in Rabkin's course are Frank Herbert (Rabkin doesn't cover him because he think LeGuin is better, whatever dude) and Cordwainer Smith.

One serious complaint I have about the course is the bizarre interpretations that Rabkin has about many stories.  On occasion, he provides a genuinely interesting comment or truly original insight.  But most of the time it's the banal "critical theory" silliness that makes up so much of literary analysis these days.  Dracula is an allegory for the upper class "literally" sucking the blood out of the working class.  Them (the 1954 B-movie) isn't really about giant ants; it's about communists and the McCarthy persecution.  Rinse Blather Repeat.

Most annoying of all is his repeated insertion of Oedipal conflict into stories where no such subplot exists or was ever intended.  He inserts in into Wells, he inserts it into Heinlein, he even inserts it into Godzilla.  Then he lectures on how you see this plot device again and again and again.  Well, sure you do ... if you keep inserting it into everything you read or see.

Overall rating: 3.5/5.0