Ugh, definitely not just you in seeing that list as overwhelmingly white. What a narrow and unrepresentative introduction to the genre. Just generally, but also some of the specific choices have me baffled, like WTF with only one author representing Alien Languages and Human Myth? That field is *so broad* there's no reason to have both selections from the same author. Ditto Human Nature and Society (and LOLs forever at choosing Resnick to represent that topic). And as much as I love Chiang and Butler, there are so many excellent POC authors. It really looks like she just grabbed two big names because she doesn't actually read anything by POC. Ditto on her choice of women.
I like your choices a lot and I think it's tactically wise to leave one of your professor's choices in most categories (not the double Resnick though, ugh!) I do think for Humans as Mortals it would be better to replace the Spinrad than the Smith, just on the grounds that I think Smith was more influential on his successors than Spinrad was? But that might be my own idiosyncratic reading history speaking. For the society section, Ink is more impactful and also super relevant to current events but "Omelas" is definitely a respected classic and might be easier to convince your prof (unpopop: I don't really like "Omelas." It's too full of blatant emotional manipulation for my taste). I really can't think of anything good for Genetics, though lots of terrible works come to mind.
Anyway, I'm definitely going to look up the works on your list that I haven't read yet. Thank you! And good luck with your prof.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2014-09-25 03:21 pm (UTC)I like your choices a lot and I think it's tactically wise to leave one of your professor's choices in most categories (not the double Resnick though, ugh!) I do think for Humans as Mortals it would be better to replace the Spinrad than the Smith, just on the grounds that I think Smith was more influential on his successors than Spinrad was? But that might be my own idiosyncratic reading history speaking. For the society section, Ink is more impactful and also super relevant to current events but "Omelas" is definitely a respected classic and might be easier to convince your prof (unpopop: I don't really like "Omelas." It's too full of blatant emotional manipulation for my taste). I really can't think of anything good for Genetics, though lots of terrible works come to mind.
Anyway, I'm definitely going to look up the works on your list that I haven't read yet. Thank you! And good luck with your prof.