In a different thread, I said the following:
Lynn Bodoni replied:
So, then. Is there an actual University course or major in the field of Science Fiction? (Please specify the University, as well.) And, if the answer is yes, how much of any ONE author’s work (not just Heinlein’s) are in the course or major requirements? Please post the actual course offerings, if you have them.
AFAIK, there are no “majors” in science fiction at any college. It’s too specific. Majors would be a more general field like “English” or “History” or “Medieval Studies” (a surprising number of fantasy writers have degrees in this).
There are courses in science fiction as literature at most colleges these day. There are usually a survey of the literature, though there may be courses on specific authors here and there. There are also a few courses on “science in science fiction” – usually grouped under science courses for non-science majors, and there are sometimes other courses with science fiction as the base (for instance, at Siena College, where I work, they have had a Religious Studies course “The Religion of Star Trek” and another professor in the Religious Studies department has talked about offering a general course on Science Fiction and Religion").
If you go for a Masters or Doctorate, you can specialize in science fiction for your thesis. (I did something of the like – I got a Masters in English, but specialized in science fiction literature).
Ditto what RealityChuck said concerning what is out there in academia concerning sci fi. He is bang on target.
In answer to tclouie, let’s have a look at the U. of Toronto calendar for undergraduate English courses. U. of T. is a heavy hitter in the world of English Lit. A person wishing to major in English there will have to read widely, but beyond that can focus on areas of special interest by taking set courses and by arranging individualized courses. (And don’t forget that a great many works traditionally covered in period survey courses may be speculative fiction to begin with.)
Let’s look at course offerings directly on speculative fiction, and secondarily at course offerings which have significant speculative fiction content.
ENG237H1; Science Fiction and Fantasy
ENG238H1; Science Fiction and Fantasy: Film
ENG258Y1; Literature and Science
ENG299Y1; Research Opportunity Program
ENG390Y1; Individual Studies
ENG490Y1; Senior Essay
ENG302Y1; Poetry and Prose, 1500-1600
ENG306Y1; Poetry and Prose, 1660-1800
ENG308Y1; Romantic Poetry and Prose
ENG220Y1; Shakespeare
ENG332Y1; Drama to 1642
ENG405H1/406H1/407H1/408H1; Studies in an Individual Writer, pre-1800
ENG420H1/421H1/422H1/423H1; Studies in an Individual Writer, post-1800
ENG430H1/431H1/432H1/433H1; Studies in an Individual Canadian Writer
ENG440Y1; Studies in Renaissance Literature
ENG444Y1; Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature
Now let’s look course offerings on Shakespeare, and secondarily at course offerings which have significant Shakespeare content.
ENG220Y1; Shakespeare
ENG299Y1; Research Opportunity Program
ENG390Y1; Individual Studies
ENG405H1/406H1/407H1/408H1; Studies in an Individual Writer, pre-1800
ENG490Y1; Senior Essay
ENG259Y1; Literature and the Environment
ENG272Y1; Origins of Orientalism
ENG290Y1; Literature and Psychoanalysis
ENG332Y1; Drama to 1642
ENG440Y1; Studies in Renaissance Literature
As you can see, it is just as easy to focus on speculative fiction, or even science fiction, as it is to focus on Shakespeare. As far as the period survey courses go, most periods include speculative fiction, so it is just a matter of taking care when choosing essay topics.
Since the purpose of undergraduate English lit is usually to provide a broad base of reading and a basic set of critical skills, rather than specialization (you have to learn to walk before you run), there will always be a limit to how much specialization is permitted, regardless of the area of literature. Can you get an undergraduate degree which only looks at modern speculative fiction? Not that I am aware of. It would leave you lacking the background and critical skills necessary to competently work with modern speculative fiction. However, speculative fiction can easily be built into undergrad programs (as you can see from the U.of T. selections), so that you can later develop into a sci fi specialist at the grad level.
Advanced degrees permit much more specialization, and can include speculative fiction as the primary focus. For example, in the 80s I took an M.A. at Waterloo, where of my four courses one was straight modern science fiction and fantasy (only one Heinlein out of over two dozen novels), one was Arthurian legend (old fantasy), one had significant selections of speculative fiction from the Renaissance, and one was a computer science project. My thesis included a significant piece on speculative fiction (Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale), and another fellow in my year did a sci fi thesis. About the only difference between then and now is that today speculative fiction is less marginalized, and is thus easier to focus on in many universities’ programs.
Occasionally a college will offer something to simply get non-lit majors to read. The theory is that any exposure to reading is better then none, so putting up a fluff course is beneficial. What is interesting is that over time, fluff courses sometimes develop into something more substantial as serious lit majors play with the genres and come up with significant findings. Children’s literature, speculative fiction, and film studies became serious areas of interest this way.
Where it really gets interesting is when contemporary ideas are used to illuminate past works, when past formats grow into new forms, and when out of the mix rise new ideas. You find science fiction and fantasy growing up out of an extremely long tradition of poetic and dramatic speculative fiction, and blossoming in the form of novels (novels being a relatively new development). This puts speculative fiction on the calendar as an area of focus, but at the same time reinforces the need not to specialize too quickly. In other words, if you want to really get into speculative fiction, do the period survey courses.
Once you start looking at many of the basic authors in various periods as being writers of speculative fiction, the distinction between modern works and works from much earlier periods begins to blur. For example, take a look at the description of a 19th century novels course at Waterloo: “English 780U - Gothic Lessons: The Fabulous and the Fabular. …We will discuss the [19th century] novels in relation to the discourses of orientalism, imperialism, and nationalism, the gothic as mode and genre, and the relationship between science fiction and the gothic (particularly their shared interest in projecting old-world anxieties onto a strange new world).”
So in answer to and agreement with Lynn Bodoni, no, you cannot get away from reading basic authors over a number of periods and still pull off an undergraduate English degree. But what you can do much of the time is read the basic authors’ works as works of speculative fiction, leaving you with a tremendous appreciation of speculative fiction regardless of period, and a good tool set with which to look at current speculative fiction.
A great SF writer must first be a great writer. In my town, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop is famous for hosting SF writers like Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Haldeman. You have to produce a major novel as your MFA thesis. And there’s a lot of work to do before you get to that novel.
Here’s a link to the IWW,
the curriculum details are down near the bottom of this page:
http://www.uiowa.edu/registrar/catalog/CollegeofLiberalArts/English.html
(maybe someday I’ll figure out how to do those cool embedded links.)
No way! Do you work at Siena College in Michigan??? My friend Marina just got a teaching job there! And you can definitely talk to her about science fiction and fantasy. Even though she’s extremely attractive, her best friends in college were geeks.
(She’s also passionately devoted to her handsome husband–so don’t be getting any ideas.) 
I found the following website:
http://www.itc.glam.ac.uk/ScienceFiction/flyer.html
It’s for a university in Scotland that offers a degree called “Science and Science Fiction.” Apparently it does courses on the relationship between science fiction and the science used in the stories.
Looks fascinating! Oh, how I wish I lived in Scotland.
Only one mention of a Heinlein title that I noticed. 
:snort:
You don’t really think the two–being extremely attractive and hanging out with geeks (or being a geek)–are mutually exclusive, do you?
tclouie, even if the course requirements at specific universities didn’t necessarily include a ton of RAH, Lynn’s right: to understand the genre, you should be familiar with the work that deeply influenced it, and that means at least RAH and Asimov (and, IMO, the stuff that predates them even though some of it is painful to read). That’s not the only stuff to read, and if you look back at the RAH thread I made some recommendations there of work that follows a path completely different from the Competent Yankee model RAH followed. But while I’m not sure if you’re trying to prove a point or are trying to develop a reading list for gaining a deeper understanding of sf, I think you’d err in skipping RAH altogether. Go read The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress–you’ll understand a bit better why some people like him so much. IMO, the important aspect of sf is not that it’s science fiction, but speculative fiction; sf is about “what would happen IF…?”.
I’m a geek too.
What?
Look, it’s no secret that the jocks enjoy the company of more beautiful women than us geeks, brains or comic book/sci-fi fans. Just seems to work out that way.
Yes, snorting is what we geeks do when we laugh.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by tclouie *
**
Yes. I snorted since I am a geek yet have been called a beautiful woman a time or two. (I still snort, though.;)) This is a side note to the main discussion, but I’d be willing to bet that the male geeks get more pretty women as they age. Many of the 30+ geeks I know are married or are seeing someone seriously. Women are a scarce commodity in geeky fields, as I know all too well, but not impossible to find outside it. And who’d hang out with 35yo jocks? 35yo geeks are more interesting.
Anyway… back to sf. Did you find those recommendations in the other RAH thread?
It’s true that geeks get more attractive as they age, partly due to their superior earning potential.
I, however, have the misfortune to still be a womanless 35-year-old geek. Being slovenly, long-haired and chronically broke may have something to do with it.
Yes, I got Heinlein recommendations up the wazoo in the other thread, particularly for the “Moon” book you mentioned and the “juveniles,” whatever those are. I’m too stubborn to consider reading them right now.
Not just RAH recommendations, tclouie. Do check out the Ellison and Card anothologies I mentioned over there if you’re interested in exploring sf further and would like to follow a path different from RAH’s. (The “juveniles” are the books Heinlein wrote for the teen market.)
tclouie,
Would you seriously like recommendations for something that would be the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in science fiction? I suppose we could quickly come up with, say, a list of 100 works of fiction, 20 works of criticism, and 20 movies that would make for a reasonable reading/viewing list for such a degree.
Go ahead, give it a shot. Such a list sounds intriguing.
Then let’s e-mail the list to the English Dept. at CSULA, where I’ve already been accepted. (Can’t move to Scotland.) 
I doubt if CSULA (California State University at Los Angeles, right?) does self-designed degrees, but there are colleges that will do such things.
[quibble]
I doubt it makes any practical difference to anyone, but the University of Glamorgan is in Wales, not Scotland.
In fact, it’s in Treforest, about ten miles from Aberdare, where I was born.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
[/quibble]
Steve Wright,
Thank you. I should have taken the time to look up where Glamorgan is.
[comicbook store guy]
I have a Masters Degree in folklore and mythology
[/comicbook store guy]
IIRC, Glamorgan also does a course on the Simpsons. I am so going there some day.