teaching – Page 2 – Speculating Canada: Canadian Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy

November 22, 2013

The Pedagogical Power of Play – Teaching Canadian SF (okay, and other literature courses too)

The Pedagogical Power of Play by Derek Newman-Stille Play is an important way to help students (of any age) learn. When you evoke student emotions, they remember things more effectively since memory acquisition is linked to emotional responses. By using an element of play in your teaching, your students are also more willing to take bigger risks, and do things...

Editorials/Teaching Comments: 2

October 27, 2013

The Power of Horror to Teach

This week I wrote a guest post for Susan MacGregor’s Suzenyms over at http://suzenyms.blogspot.ca/2013/10/teaching-little-monsters-guest-post-by.html about the power of horror to teach us. Here are a couple of teasers to get you excited to check it out. “Horror can be a way of illustrating social exclusions – showing who is left out when we think of ideas of ‘the normal’. Outsiders become monsters…and...

Editorials Comments: 0

October 15, 2013

Cripping the Light Fantastic: Disability and Speculative Fiction

A Brief Exploration of Disability in Speculative Fiction By Derek Newman-Stille This post will explore some of the notions we examined in my panel at Can Con on Disability in Canadian SF. The panel went extremely well, and I hope to be able to share some insights with Speculating Canada readers who were unable to make it to Can Con....

Editorials/Teaching Comments: 3

May 9, 2013

An Interview with James Alan Gardner

An Interview with James Alan Gardner By Derek Newman-Stille I have been very lucky to get in touch with James Alan Gardner. As a disability scholar and someone who is interested in portrayals in Science Fiction of people who are Othered, I was extremely pleased that Mr. Gardner agreed to do an interview with me. I hope that readers enjoy...

Interviews Comments: 0

April 19, 2013

Paranoia, Power, Politics, Police, and Protest

A Review of Cory Doctorow’s Homeland (Tor Teen, 2013) By Derek Newman-Stille Marcus was known as m1k3y when he was younger, a web protestor and advocate of human rights who exposed government corruption. In Homeland, Marcus is a young adult, just beginning life outside of university. He has all of the regular issues facing a young person – searching for...

Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

April 15, 2013

300th Post and The Story of Speculating Canada

Dear readers, Today will be Speculating Canada’s 300th post!! Thank you for all of your support. I thought I would publish a bit about the story of Speculating Canada itself and reveal some of my hopes and dreams about where Speculating Canada is going. Speculating Canada grew out of my current research for my PhD in Canadian Studies at Trent...

Editorials Comment: 1

April 13, 2013

Quote – SF Taught Us How to Think About the Unthinkable

“It was science fiction, future fiction, SF, that taught us how to think about death and despoilation by radiation, chemical waste devastation, Big Brother, Star Wars and Nculear Winter. So what’s “unthinkable” now?” -Judith Merril – Afterward (Tesseracts)

Quotes Comments: 0

March 20, 2013

Interview with Leah Bobet

An interview with Leah Bobet by Derek Newman-Stille I was fortunate enough to meet Leah Bobet at CAN CON: The Conference on Canadian Content in Speculative Arts and Literature in Ottawa this past year. We had a brief chat about SF and inclusivity, and I got back in touch with her again after reading her novel Above, which I was...

Interviews Comments: 0

March 19, 2013

Between Pages of Experience

A review of Jo Walton’s Among Others By Derek Newman-Stille SF has a pedagogical value – it teaches, it shares experiences, and it opens the mind to new horizons. Outsiders and social outcasts are often drawn to SF as a means to explore a world that seems strange and alienating to them – reading the alien as a way of...