- Determinism in Chiang's works: It seems like he really likes playing around with the idea that there is only one set timeline for events and the unforeseen consequences of people's actions. I could definitely cite "Story of Your Life" and "The Merchant and the Alchemists Gate" as examples and I'd like to sort of dissect his other stories to see if I can find traces of that mindset even when he isn't directly talking about determinism.
- Morality in "Hell Is the Absence of God": What happens when God isn't just? I don't know. I find it interesting but I don't know if I could explore it in depth enough for a full paper.
- Ownership of Information: I'd say this definitely falls into the realm of Doctorow and it's definitely relevant to our society at the moment. Can anyone own information? Should anyone own information? How private should information be? Is Marcus Yallow even the right person to answer these questions?
- Migration away from Earth in the Dozois anthology: I know we haven't finished it yet, but in most of the stories in the anthology, humanity is separated into people living on Earth and people living elsewhere. I'd like to analyze the reasons each writer gives for an exodus from Earth and compare them. There are definitely similarities (nuclear war for example), so what do they mean?
So I'm still not sure what to write my paper on but that's the start I have so far.
I really like the 4th topic idea. I'm doing something that will incorporate some of the 'exodus themes'. It would be quite interesting to see if you are able to find common causes for humans leaving Earth in stories that are actually quite different. You could also examine if the problems that force people to leave Earth are man made and what that says about the author's view on mankind.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually doing the first topic.. haha. I really like the second one as well though, but that may just be due to my love of all of the Ted Chiang stories we've read. It would be interesting to do that, but I don't see how you could stretch that to a long enough paper. It would be extremely interesting to do the third topic in relation to acts in congress such as the Stop Online Piracy Act.
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