Exploring Literary Physics
An asteroid strikes a massive starship halfway through a 300-year, multigenerational journey for a society of humans who hope to establish a new home on a distant planet. The disaster costs thousands of lives and cripples the starship’s support systems, leaving only enough hydrogen to fuel another 30 years of space flight. The surviving travelers must work together to find a star where they can harvest more hydrogen.
What plan of action will save them, and how will the story unfold? Two College of Arts and Sciences faculty members brought their undergraduate courses together to challenge students with solving these questions in a groundbreaking collaboration of physics and English courses.
Astronomical Engagement
Sean Lindsay, a teaching associate professor in physics and astronomy, designed his astronomy special topics course, Tales from the Yggdrasil to teach principles of astronomy within the imagined scenario of the troubled space journey. He named the fictional starship Yggdrasil after the “world tree” from Norse mythology—symbolic of the ship’s role as a “branch” between worlds for its citizens.
Lindsay’s inspiration for the class goes back to his own astronomical roots.
“In a weird cosmic recycling of things, I ended up teaching the very honors astronomy class that I took as a UT undergrad that made me want to become an astronomer,” he said.
To share this passion in an engaging way with his students in that class, he decided to “go big” with the format.
“I came up with the sci-fi scenario to take things that we learned in the class and apply them in a very interesting and fun way,” he said. “It’s a three-chapter sci-fi adventure in which students apply what they learn. The students enjoyed it so much and I enjoyed doing it so much that I decided it should be an entire new class.”
Shared Literary Space
Amy Elias, Chancellor’s Professor and director of the Denbo Center for Humanities and Arts, is a specialist in speculative fiction. Her English course, Science Fiction and Fantasy, presents students with a range of literary approaches to space travel. It analyzes the narrative, ethical, psychological, and political questions raised by contemporary science fiction authors such as Octavia Butler, Becky Chambers, and Andy Weir.
“I have 14 different majors in my class,” said Elias. “These are students from all across the campus who are excited about reading and talking about science fiction literature and bridging gaps between the humanities and other fields.”
While working together in a Denbo center seminar group discussing speculative thought, the two professors realized their classes were locked into similar topical orbits.
“I have been very interested in building connections between the humanities, the arts, and the STEM fields,” said Elias. “I knew the wonderful work that Sean was doing. He has created this incredible project for astronomy, and I could see ways that the science fiction I teach could easily dialogue with that.”
They coordinated their class schedules and developed ways to merge them under the theme of humans in space, integrating astronomy, physics, and humanities with the aim to enhance critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
“I entered his world and fit my class into the frame that he already had,” said Elias. “An AI called Steven creates everything on the Yggdrasil, but the people are losing their skills. So, in my class we created a whole set of bylaws for a society named CCREATE (The Council for Critical Remembrance and Thought Empowerment) to maintain the skills of human, realistic learning.”
Interdisciplinary Student Innovation
In this shared immersive experience, Lindsay’s students focus on science problems using principles learned in astronomy lessons—solving problems like finding the right kind of star that the ship can reach. Elias’s students focus on societal questions informed by their sci-fi reading list.
The two classes come together in the last portion of the semester, bringing skills from multiple disciplines to solve problems within the fictional world that can translate critical skills back into the real world.
“This is scenario-based, problem-based learning,” said Lindsay. “It increases engagement by giving students autonomy. They are designing parts of the world, either the physical or the social structure of the ship.”
The collaboration represents a dynamic way of learning and working toward solutions that improve life and lives and also allows students to bring their majors into STEM and humanities classes.
“That’s one of the reasons that I wanted to create this course,” said Lindsay. “It gives us the opportunity to imagine a better future—and spark something in students to start pushing us in that positive future direction.”
By Randall Brown
