The uzbekistan state world languages university english faculty II

The aim of the course paper: to develop scientific and methodological recommendations about Isaac Asimov and scientific fantastic fiction in American literature.
Course paper object the process of introducing Isaac Asimov and scientific fantastic fiction in American literature.
Subject of course paper Isaac Asimov and scientific fantastic fiction in American literature introduction skills
Practical importance of course paper It serves to effectively use the thoughts, approaches and the results of the course work, which ensure the effectiveness of the course work, to prepare lectures on Pedagogical Sciences, create manuals, as well as to create methodological recommendations, popularize work experiences.
The structural structure and volume of the work of the course paper: the work consists of an introduction, 2 chapters, 4, general conclusions and recommendations, a list of the literature used.

CHAPTER I. SCIENCE FICTION GENRE. ISAAC ASIMOV - SCIENCE FICTION WRITER

1.1. What is science fiction

The topic “Science Fiction” is interesting because it has a specific feature of depicting scientific topics that are not built on pure fiction, but always based on a scientific basis. And if you look into the past, then most of the topics of science fiction in the field of biology, physics, cybernetics, medicine, space conquest, have become a reality in our time.
History of fiction
The advent of fantasy was caused by the industrial revolution in the 19th century. With the acquisition of popularity, science fiction began to be divided into science and entertainment, in which fantastic surroundings were used to refresh old stories. Initially, science fiction was a genre of literature describing the achievements of science and technology, the prospects for their development.
Later, the development of technology began to be viewed in a negative light and led to the emergence of dystopia. And in the 1980s, its cyberpunk subgenre began to gain popularity. In it, high technologies coexist with total social control and the power of omnipotent corporations. In the works of this genre, the plot is based on the life of marginal fighters against the oligarchic regime, as a rule, in conditions of total cybernetization of society and social decline. Notable examples: Neuromancer by William Gibson.
Science fiction
Genre in literature, cinema and other arts, one of the varieties of fantasy. Science fiction is based on fantastic assumptions in science and technology, including both the sciences and the humanities. Works based on non-scientific assumptions belong to other genres. The topics of science fiction works are new discoveries, inventions, facts unknown to science, space exploration and time travel. The action of science fiction often takes place in the future, which makes this genre related to futurology, the science of predicting the world of the future.
The author of the term "science fiction" is probably Yakov Perelman, who in 1914 wrote and published an additional chapter "Breakfast in a Weightless Kitchen" to Jules Verne's novel "From a Cannon to the Moon", which he gave the term "science fiction". Prior to this, a similar term - "fantastically scientific journeys" - was used by Alexander Kuprin in relation to Wells and other authors. Wells originally used this term to refer to what we would today call science fiction, in which the basis for the narrative is a conscious desire to rely on already known facts, and if there was also some kind of miracle in the narrative, then at least it should not have been about a whole arsenal of miracles.
Varieties of science fiction
Science fiction has evolved and grown over its history, spawning new directions and absorbing elements from older genres such as utopia and alternate history. Science fiction is divided mainly according to the area of ​​assumption: discoveries and inventions, the course of history, the organization of society, time travel, etc. Of course, the division into directions is rather arbitrary, since one and the same work can combine elements of several types of science fiction at once.
hard science fiction
The oldest and original genre of science fiction. Its feature is the strict adherence to the scientific laws known at the time of writing the work. Hard science fiction is based on a natural science assumption: for example, a scientific discovery, an invention, a novelty of science or technology. Prior to other types of science fiction, it was simply called "science fiction".
Hard science fiction was especially developed in the USSR, where other genres of science fiction were not welcomed by censors. Particularly widespread was the "fantasy of the near sight", telling about the events of the alleged near future - first of all, the colonization of the planets of the solar system. The most famous examples of science fiction "close sight" include the books of G. Gurevich, G. Martynov, A. Kazantsev, the early books of the Strugatsky brothers ("Land of Crimson Clouds", "Interns"). Their books told about the heroic expeditions of astronauts to the Moon, Venus, Mars, to the asteroid belt. In these books, technical accuracy in describing space flights was combined with romantic fiction about the structure of neighboring planets - then there was still hope of finding life on them.
Although the main works of hard science fiction were written in the 19th and first half of the 20th century, many authors turned to this genre in the second half of the 20th century. For example, Arthur C. Clarke, in his Space Odyssey series of books, relied on a strictly scientific approach and described the development of astronautics, which is very close to the real one.
social fiction
The main goal of social fiction is to reveal the laws of development of a society that has fallen into new and unusual conditions for humanity. A characteristic feature of the works of this genre is an attempt to show the development of a human society that finds itself in an unusual situation or a society radically different from the modern one, the development of themes of social engineering, social psychology or control over a person. This genre includes many utopias and dystopias.
Social fiction was particularly widespread in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe: the work of Ivan Efremov, the Strugatsky brothers, Stanislav Lem.
Chrono-fiction
Chrono-fiction, temporal fantasy, or chrono-opera is a genre that tells about time travel. The key work of this subgenre is Wells' Time Machine. Although time travel has been written about before (for example, Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court), it was in The Time Machine that time travel was first intentional and scientifically based, and thus this plot device was introduced specifically into science fiction.
In the 20th century, the idea of ​​time travel, and even tourism, was developed. Fantasts have devoted many works to the analysis of temporal paradoxes that can be caused by traveling into the past or returning from the future to the present. This theme, for example, is taken up in Ray Bradbury's famous short story "Thunder Came". Kir Bulychev used time travel in dozens of his books, including the Alice series.
Chrono-fiction is often combined with alternative history. One of the most popular plots in chrono-fiction is that a hero from the present, who has fallen into the past, changes the course of history.
The most famous "hit" works are Leon Sprague de Camp "Let no darkness fall", Harry Harrison "Time Rebellion", Paul Anderson "Three Hearts and Three Lions". Also often there are books about parallel worlds formed due to different developments in time, and people traveling between them or even controlling their development.
Alternate history science fiction
Works in which the idea is developed that an event happened or did not happen in the past, and what could come out of it.
The first examples of this kind of assumption are found long before the advent of science fiction. Not all of them were works of art - sometimes they were serious works of historians. In the 19th century, the authors of patriotic utopias began to resort to alternative history in order to “rewrite history” in their favor.
The most popular "key points" in alternate history are the greatest battles and wars. The victory of Germany in World War II is especially often described - usually in the form of a dystopian warning. Often they "rewrite" the results of the civil war in the United States, the revolution and the civil war in Russia, the battle of Hastings, the Napoleonic wars. At the same time, many authors, for the sake of patriotic sentiments, rewrite history "in their favor." It is noted that in the current Russian science fiction a lot of alternative stories and chrono-operas are published, where the history of Russia is rewritten in a patriotic spirit, in accordance with the author's convictions.
Separately, it is worth noting such types of alternative history as alternative geography and cryptohistory. Alternative geography assumes that the geography of the Earth is different from what we know, and that changes in history are associated with this.
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
Closely related genres, the action of works in which takes place during or shortly after a catastrophe on a planetary scale: a collision with a meteorite, a nuclear war, an ecological catastrophe, an epidemic.
apocalyptic fiction
A genre of science fiction that tells about the onset of a global catastrophe. The first works of this genre appeared in the era of romanticism at the very beginning of the 19th century, but the real heyday of the genre fell on the Cold War, and therefore the classic plot of this genre tells about a thermonuclear war. Actions take place during a catastrophe: alien invasions, robot uprisings, pandemics, volcanic eruptions.
Post-apocalyptic fiction
A genre of science fiction in which the action takes place in a world that has survived a global catastrophe. Post-apocalyptic is also called a creative style that carries the mood of desert, loneliness and horror in the images of aged and abandoned equipment or buildings. The main characteristic feature of post-apocalyptic is the development of the plot in the world, or a limited part of it, with a specific history. In the past of this world, civilization reached a high level of social and technological development, but then the world experienced some kind of global catastrophe, as a result of which civilization and most of the wealth it created were destroyed. As a catastrophe that destroyed the world, they are most often used: the third world war with the use of weapons of mass destruction.
Utopias and dystopias
Genres dedicated to modeling the social structure of the future. In utopias, an ideal society is drawn, expressing the views of the author. In anti-utopias - the exact opposite of the ideal, a terrible, usually totalitarian, social structure.
Utopias A genre of fiction, close to science fiction, describing a model of an ideal, from the point of view of the author, society. In contrast to dystopia, it is characterized by the author's belief in the impeccability of the model.
Many literary scholars and philosophers distinguish utopias:
Technocratic, that is, those where social problems are solved by accelerating scientific and technological progress.
social, which involve the possibility of people changing their own society.
Among the latest utopias, egalitarian, idealizing and absolutizing principles of universal equality and harmonious development of individuals are sometimes singled out.
Dystopias A direction in fiction and cinema, in a narrow sense, a description of a totalitarian state, in a broad sense, of any society in which negative development trends have prevailed.
Dystopia is a logical development of utopia and formally can also be attributed to this trend. However, if the classical utopia focuses on demonstrating the positive features of the social order described in the work, then the dystopia seeks to reveal its negative features. Thus, the difference between utopia and dystopia is only in the point of view of the author. An important feature of utopia is its static nature, while dystopia is characterized by attempts to consider the development of the described social devices.
Science fiction subgenres
space opera
One of the sub-genres of adventure science fiction that is usually defined by formal signs: the action takes place in outer space or on other planets. Initially, the works of this genre were purely entertaining, and the term was used in a negative sense, but later the techniques of "space opera" entered the arsenal of authors of artistically significant science fiction. A landmark event for the "space opera" was the release of George Lucas' film "Star Wars", in which the conventions of the genre were used in combination with fundamental mythological archetypes. Although the space opera is generally considered an entertainment genre, its techniques are also used by the authors of more "serious" directions.
Cyberpunk
Science fiction subgenre. Typically, cyberpunk works describe a dystopian world of the near future, in which high technological development, such as information technology and cybernetics, is combined with deep decline or radical changes in the social structure. Classic cyberpunk characters are marginalized, alienated loners who live on the fringes of society in a predominantly dystopian future where technological change, the ubiquitous infosphere of computerized information, has rapidly invaded everyday life.
Cyberpunk plots are often built around the conflict between hackers, artificial intelligence and mega-corporations, which can be found in novels such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation or Frank Herbert's Dune. Cyberpunk worlds tend to be post-industrial dystopias, and describe a society on the cusp of rapid social and cultural transformation.
Steampunk or steampunk is a direction of science fiction that simulates an alternative version of the development of mankind, in which the technology of steam engines and mechanics were mastered to perfection. The presence of a specific art form in steampunk has led to the emergence of a certain steampunk style in world culture.
Post-cyberpunk A subgenre of science fiction that developed out of cyberpunk, which, like its predecessor, describes the technical development of the society of the near future and the processes taking place (the general penetration of information technology, genetic and molecular engineering, human body modification technologies), but at the same time, in unlike "classic" cyberpunk, the protagonists of the works actively strive to improve social conditions, or at least prevent the degradation of society.
In post-cyberpunk, two directions can be conditionally distinguished - biopunk and nanopunk.
Biopunk Direction in science fiction (a kind of post-cyberpunk), dedicated to the social and psychological aspects of the use of genetic engineering and the use of biological weapons.
Nanopunk A direction in science fiction (a kind of post-cyberpunk) dedicated to the social and psychological aspects of the use of nanotechnologies. Nanopunk considers the possibilities of manipulating matter at the molecular and atomic level, including the creation of substances with programmable properties, as well as the creation of useful viruses that can provide a person with imaginary or obvious perfection in the form of a zombie or another form of posthuman.