Syllabus for SF/F

<http://www.scifiwright.com/2012/10/syllabus-for-scientifiction/>

DATE: 2012-10-06

Science fiction author John C. Wright answered the naively-asked,
"What SF/F stories would you include in a junior or senior high
school English Literature course?" by pointing out that the question
implicitly assumes a much more important question: What is the
purpose of education? He then gave this controversial but sound
answer to the latter question before offering his science
fiction/fantasy syllabus.

* The Purpose of Education

1. Teach youth the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic, then
   either a trade or the liberal arts (Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic,
   Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy).

2. Instruct youth in Christian faith, classical virtues
   (fortitude, temperance, justice, prudence), Civics, and History in
   order to become productive and responsible citizens (jurors,
   voters, soldiers).

3. Conform character to shared social values. Honesty, love of
   country and home, respect and obedience toward parents, reverence
   for God, respect for fellow citizens, fear of the law, charity
   toward the poor and weak. Men must learn honor while women must
   learn femininity, decorum, and chastity.

4. Subvert and eventually abolish the Progressive program of
   indocrination in communism, feminism, sexual liberation,
   environmentalism, the meaninglessness of philosophy, moral
   relativism, and materialism, that currently dominates public
   education in most developed nations.

5. Instruct youth in the culture and history of their forefathers.

* SF/F Syllabus

- The Iliad, The Odyssey by Homer
- Antigone by Sophocles
- The Orestira (Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides) by Aeschylus
- The Aeneid by Virgil
- Scipio's Dream by Cicero
- The Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradisio) by Dante
- Orlando Furioso by Ariosto
- Faerie Queen by Spencer
- Paradise Lost by Milton
- Macbeth, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer's Night Dream,
  The Temperst by Shakespeare
- Le Morte de Arthur by Mallory
- Idylls of the King by Tennyson
- A Christmas Carol by Dickens
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
- Jungle Book, "With the Night Mail" by Kipling
- 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, From Earth to the Moon, Around the
  World in 80 Days, Master of the World by Jules Verne
- War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau by
  HG Wells
- Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
- Nineteen Eighty Fou  by George Orwell
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Bradbury
- The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison
- A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
- Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

- Phantasies by MacDonald
- Space Trilogy, Screwtape Letters, Voyage of the Dawn Treader by
  C.S. Lewis
- Smith of Wotton Major, Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
- A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
- The Man Who Was Thursday, The Ballad of the White Horse by
  G.K. Chesterton
- Past Master by R.A. Lafferty
- A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
- "Scanners Live in Vain", "The Dead Lady of Clown Town", "Alpha
  Ralpha Boulevard" by Cordwainer Smith
- Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
- "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "The Garden of Forking Paths", "The
  Library of Babel", "The Lottery in Babylon" by Jorge Luis Borges
- "Fifth Head of Cerberus", Short Sun trilogy by Gene Wolfe 

* Metadata

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