Explore classic masterpieces of the imaginative mind from famous authors such as Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, Jules Verne, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and more. From talking frogs to human robots, from Mad Hatters to mad scientists, Professor Rabkin helps you discover the magic, wonder, and profound significance of that literature.
Masterpieces of the Imaginative Mind: Literature's Most Fantastic Works
Learn what fairy tales and science fiction stories can reveal about the psyches of individuals and nations in this illuminating journey through the world's most fantastic and imaginative literature.
Rated 3 out of
5
by
rikh from
Dry and uninspiring
We were excited to initiate this course. We are great fans of fantasy literature and believe it to be thought-provoking, challenging, and inspiring. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the lectures in this course. the lectures on the first 3 disks (#1-18) are pedantic, dry, and somehow manage to suck the magic totally out of the subject matter. When the lecturer gets to science fiction (lecture 16) they start to improve (it appears that the lecturer actually enjoys SciFi) and lectures 20-24 were both informative and enjoyable. Had I taken this course while in college I would not have felt it was worth my time. I have to say the same about the video courses.
Date published: 2024-01-26
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Lynmidlands from
Excellent value for money
Bought as a present. Makes a great gift for anyone and can be enjoyed over and over again
Date published: 2022-08-13
Rated 4 out of
5
by
DaGeek from
Quality increases as course goes on...
Initially, my wife and I both had a bit of an issue with this course. Partially it was because the first 2 or 3 lessons are somewhat pedantic, but hold on, he gets much better as he gets into the portion of the course he is most passionate about. It was also partially that for some reason his lecture style during the pedantic portion reminded me of a Southern Baptist preacher or Sunday school teacher. I was not grooving on that. My wife was a little crept out by that style. But again, he got better in rest of the course.
What I really enjoyed about the course was that he was touching on so many books that I was familiar with or at least I was familiar with the authors. I also encountered, through this course, some new authors that I want to explore.
The latter part of the course dealt with science fiction which seems to be his passion, and he was very passionate in these lectures. Occasionally with some of his analysis though, I thought to myself, you know sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But it did make me think about some of the novels and short stories in a new way.
Get past the first 2 or 3 classes, which are foundational, I believe you will enjoy this course.
Date published: 2022-06-05
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Ron N from
College Course on Imaginative Fiction for Everyone
This is one of the best courses from Great Courses in my collection, and I currently have over two dozen in science, history, literature, and science fiction.
Rabkin's explanations have enough detail and interconnections to be very convincing but not boring or difficult; giving the student a broad appreciation and understanding of the methods, goals, and evolution of imaginative fiction writing and major authors and their works. I have watched this series several times, returning to it for reminders and insight as I continue my regular reading. I have another Science Fiction series from great courses having to do with the science (or nonsense) in various science fiction works and themes. Together they make a great thought provoking experience.
Date published: 2021-11-25
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Franalice from
Literature at its best!
The survey of fantastical themes in literature is presented in adult and a bit of children's books. Key themes are addressed, excerpts from selections are read and the result is an in-depth understanding of the story lines and their relation to society. I highly recommend this series. The professor is animated, interesting and covers many, many important novels.
Date published: 2021-03-21
Rated 2 out of
5
by
Susan B from
Not an introductory course
I really wanted to like this course and kept on slogging through it in the hopes that at some point I would become something other than lukewarm about it. Part of the difficulty was that much of the time I didn't know what Dr. Rabkin was talking about. He throws out theories of all kinds--psychoanalytical, philosophical, psychosexual, religious--which left me wondering what he was talking about. Not only did I not agree but I couldn't even see how he had come to that way of thinking. This was particularly an issue during the first half of the course and it got pretty tedious. I really enjoy science fiction and have read many of the books he discussed but ended up shaking my head in confusion. I kept on slogging through it but at the end wished I hadn't bothered.
Date published: 2021-03-06
Rated 5 out of
5
by
Carl S from
Outstanding!
This is one of the great literature courses of theirs. The lecturer has done an incredible job of synthesizing all of the imaginative literature from Plato's republic to Ursula Le Guinn's The Left Hand of God, with stops in between at Alice in Wonderland, Virginia Wolff's Orlando and War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. His presentations were lucid and packed with insights. His presentation has inspired me to start reading science fiction again, almost 5 decades after I last read any of it.
This is also one of the most thoroughly documented courses I have experienced because his guidebook included a timeline, a glossary, and biographies of all of the authors.
Date published: 2021-01-29
Rated 3 out of
5
by
Charles Rosselli from
Well done; didn't increase my love for the subject
Professor Rabkin is well articulated and knows his subject well. Unfortunately, after listening to the first of four DVDs, I find my sense of wonder for the stories he discusses to be less not more. This is a valuable series for background info on the story authors. However, Professor Rabkin's insight into the stories suggesting suppressed sexuality, the dangers of colonialism, etc. dampened my appetite for reading the stories he was covering. I guess I read fantasy & science fiction to add magic to my life rather than ground me more in the struggles of humankind.
Date published: 2020-10-19
Overview
About
Dr. Eric S. Rabkin is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He earned his bachelor's degree at Cornell University and his Ph.D. at The University of Iowa. Professor Rabkin received the Golden Apple Award, given annually by students for the outstanding teacher at the University of Michigan. Other awards include the University Teaching Award, the LS&A Excellence in Education Award, and the University of Michigan Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award. He also received a fellowship from the American Council for Learned Societies, and research funding from the American Philosophical Society. Dr. Rabkin is well known for his large, popular lecture courses on science fiction and fantasy and for his many teaching innovations. His research examines fantasy literature, science fiction, and graphic narrative, among other topics. He is credited with more than 160 publications. His more than 30 books include Narrative Suspense; The Fantastic in Literature; Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision (with Robert Scholes); Teaching Writing That Works: A Group Approach to Practical English (with Macklin Smith); and Mars: A Tour of the Human Imagination.
01: The Brothers Grimm & Fairy Tale Psychology
Professor Rabkin describes the course structure. In the first half, he will discuss fantastic literature from the earliest fairy tales to modern writers. In the second half, he will discuss the most significant genre of fantastic literature today: science fiction. He introduces the tales of the Brothers Grimm and explores the psychological truths in some of these stories.
35 min
02: Propp, Structure, and Cultural Identity
In 1928 Russian scholar Vladimir Propp discovered the structural universality of oral folk tales and devised several theories about them, including the notions that characters remain stable within a tale and that sequences of key events are the same across cultures.
30 min
03: Hoffmann and the Theory of the Fantastic
Professor Rabkin discusses E.?T.?A. Hoffmann, a romantic polymath and a spinner of true fantasy tales. Here Professor Rabkin defines the concepts of Romantic, Fantastic, and Fantasy. He also points out that long before Freud, Hoffmann posited a subconscious more powerful than the conscious. For Hoffmann, the achievement of art depends on both embracing and disciplining the fantastic.
31 min
04: Poe—Genres and Degrees of the Fantastic
Edgar Allan Poe used fantasy and created overpowering emotional effects for his readers by tapping into some of humanity's deepest fantasies and fears: for example, fear of death, fear of loneliness, and fear of one's self. Poe used art to accommodate his own fears, which, as Professor Rabkin points out, reflects what fairy tales have traditionally done.
31 min
05: Lewis Carroll: Puzzles, Language, & Audience
Lewis Carroll's Alice books make up a composite fantasy that captivates adults by inspiring us to rethink the roles of language, convention, and art in our lives. Here the fantastic is the world of Alice's own imagination. What are the limits of language and logic for understanding our world?
32 min
06: H. G. Wells: We Are All Talking Animals
Wells was once considered the pre-eminent novelist in English. In works like The Invisible Man, Wells shows how science offers a fantasy revenge against repression, both psychosexual and social. He argues for stories about issues that affect all people, not, as Henry James preferred, mere individuals. Wells analyzed the modern world but on a foundation of fairy tales.
32 min
07: Franz Kafka—Dashed Fantasies
Franz Kafka, an alienated man, recreated his life through parables of the fantastic. He drew his characters from the world of everyday experience and put them into settings that are familiar but situations that are fantastic. Professor Rabkin analyzes several stories, showing how Kafka criticizes social institutions as holding the potential for assistance but never giving any.
31 min
08: Woolf—Fantastic Feminism & Periods of Art
Virginia Woolf, who felt repressed in society because of her female sex, found consolation in the imaginative mind. Thus, in her fantastic novel Orlando, the protagonist begins as a male in the Elizabethan era and ends up a mother in the 1920s. Professor Rabkin examines Woolf's works, also touching on important writings of Emily Dickinson and Laurence Sterne.
30 min
09: Robbe-Grillet, Experimental Fiction & Myth
Alain Robbe-Grillet's "New Novel" The Erasers challenges our notion of reality. It is a retelling of the Oedipus myth, suggesting ways to confront and erase that myth. Professor Rabkin links Robbe-Grillet's experimental novel with discussions of style by Roland Barthes and the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss.
32 min
10: Tolkien & Mass Production of the Fantastic
Professor Rabkin pays tribute to the Arthurian legends of England and recounts how J. R. R. Tolkien built on these fantasy materials to create his monumental trilogy Lord of the Rings. Professor Rabkin also discusses Tolkien's stories "Farmer Giles of Ham" and "Leaf by Niggle," showing how these tales too reflect Tolkien's deepest notions of politics and religion.
31 min
11: Children’s Literature and the Fantastic
In this lecture, Professor Rabkin examines children's literature, pointing out that the loose constraints on it invite the fantastic. Attention is paid to the works of Beatrix Potter, Margaret Wise Brown, Dr. Seuss, and Norton Juster. Dr. Rabkin notes that children's literature has contributed to fantasy and imagination that enrich adult literature, for example, George Orwell's Animal Farm.
30 min
12: Postmodernism and the Fantastic
Postmodernism, the current literary age, tends to view Nature as a matter of perspective, and shares important traits with fantasy literature. Indeed, works of Magical Realism, like those of Gabriel García Márquez, explore this view with other experimental fantastic literature.
29 min
13: Defining Science Fiction
Professor Rabkin concentrates on science fiction, defining it as a fantastic genre that claims its plausibility against a background of science.
31 min
14: Mary Shelley—Grandmother of Science Fiction
The 1818 novel, Frankenstein, is the first fully achieved science fiction novel. It grew out of a form of Romanticism called Gothicism that Shelley re-formed in a crucial new way. The novel is not about science but about what goes wrong with it when controlled by an egoist.
30 min
15: Hawthorne, Poe, and the Eden Complex
Significant Hawthorne stories reflect the important Eden Complex, a concept discovered by Professor Rabkin, one element of which is a character striving to be godlike or to twist nature for his own ends. Poe too used Eden Complex constructs, with female roles played by symbols such as a whirlpool, a pit, or a bed.
31 min
16: Jules Verne and the Robinsonade
Jules Verne combined love of science with satire. Most of his works are "Robinsonades"—fantasies of intellectual conquest that, like the character Robinson Crusoe, sought to recreate alien circumstances in a European image.
31 min
17: Wells—Industrialization of the Fantastic
H.?G. Wells used science fiction as parables for political and philosophical criticism. In The Time Machine, Wells looks at the inhumanity of the British class system, and in War of the Worlds at British imperialism; he rebukes them both.
33 min
18: The History of Utopia
Utopian literature is fantastic and can assume three forms: a utopia can be pleasant, ambiguous, or horrible. Lately, most have been horrible—as in the novels We, 1984, and Brave New World—and they challenge readers to change society.
30 min
19: Science Fiction and Religion
Both science fiction and religion, although based on different notions of authority, try to better human life. Thus, science fiction sometimes uses religious speculation to explore spiritual concerns.
32 min
20: Pulp Fiction, Bradbury, & the American Myth
Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote about planets and unexplored continents, was a successful practitioner of pulp fiction. Ray Bradbury's groundbreaking The Martian Chronicles helped make the transformation from pulp fiction to subtler, more thoughtful science fiction.
32 min
21: Robert A. Heinlein—He Mapped the Future
Robert A. Heinlein's social imagination, his "hard science fiction" extrapolation, and superior craftsmanship, represents the best of a generation of American science fiction. His stories embody a strongly libertarian critique of modern American life.
32 min
22: Asimov and Clarke—Cousins in Utopia
Both Isaac Asimov (The Foundation series and I, Robot) and Arthur C. Clarke (2001: A Space Odyssey) were trained scientists as well as prolific authors. Both thought that humanity was perfectible and could achieve a good utopia—but first had to wake up to its shortcomings.
31 min
23: Ursula K. Le Guin: Transhuman Anthropologist
Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the most challenging writers of science fiction today. Her stories include genderless people, thus challenging gender stereotypes, and she also weaves Taoist philosophy into her novels. Le Guin's stories offer multiple changes of viewpoint to change attitudes toward language, human relations, and morality.
32 min
24: Cyberpunk, Postmodernism, and Beyond
Professor Rabkin's final lecture examines the latest trends in science fiction. He discusses William Gibson (Neuromancer); Philip K. Dick, whose fiction inspired the movie Blade Runner; New Wave; and Cyberpunk, an outgrowth of cybernetics and punk music. He ends by suggesting that we now live in a science fiction world.
33 min
