Worldbuilding with Ursula Le Guin

Students at the Ursula Le Guin exhibit in Morse Library in November.

As Keefer Chair of the Humanities, Professor of English Tamara Ketabgian watches for opportunities to connect with the community and share the importance of public humanities. She saw one with the 50th anniversary of The Dispossessed, the utopian novel by Ursula Le Guin, the 1991-1992 Mackey Chair in Creative Writing.

Ketabgian’s fall class, “Worldbuilding with Ursula Le Guin,” which explored science fiction and worldbuilding in Le Guin’s utopian novel The Dispossessed, was one of several Impact Beloit Community Connections classes providing experiential learning opportunities and engagement between the college and the Beloit community.

The project received a matching grant from Wisconsin Humanities, and involved public events and activities in which students took on leadership roles, organized events, moderated discussions, and curated an exhibit about the author and her time at the college. Some students were drawn to the course because of their interest in fantasy and science fiction. Jackson Kompkoff ’27 says that science fiction, the fiction genre he reads regularly, is a great way to explore different political and philosophical ideas.

Rowan Wilson ’27 appreciates the multidisciplinary nature of worldbuilding, and studying human society and culture. India David ’25 agrees, noting that science fiction can “help us better understand our world.”

Because The Dispossessed is a novel about two worlds divided in their ideologies, Ketabgian felt that it was crucial to examine it as a way “to get people talking about the process of dialogue itself during a fraught political time. The novel is about division and how people communicate despite it, or through it.”

Engaging in public humanities

Ketabgian’s primary objective was “for students to have experience working on teams for a public audience — the goal is for them to be doing public humanities.” The course kicked off with a student-run roundtable featuring a panel of current and emeriti faculty from the physics, critical identity studies, and political science departments. Students led discussions between Beloiters and community members with Le Guin-inspired questions. “It was cool to see people from the community talking to college students and coming together,” says David.

Students also facilitated discussions and workshops at area high schools. They worked with teachers Greg Wallendal ’98 at Beloit Memorial and Ali Rehfeldt Haab ’15 at Hononegah, and with teachers at Turner High with the help of Ashley Bertelsen Lowrey ’08. Wilson acted as manager for the high school discussions, creating lesson plans and reading guides in conjunction with the teachers.

Kompkoff, who participated in the high school outreach project, found it rewarding. “I hope to get students to think creatively about politics and imagine different futures that may not be offered to them by their community,” he says.

Return of the Wooden Woman

Tamara Katabgian, professor of English, recounts the history of the Wooden Woman at a community event in Morse Library.The Le Guin exhibit was unveiled in November in the Morse Library by project manager Drea Greuel ’27 and student curators Ella Walters ’27 and Julia Weber ’26, and featured different editions of The Dispossessed, poems written by Le Guin during her stay at Beloit, and feedback that she provided to Mackey seminar students Karen Mullner ’92 and Lora E. Stevenson Obrohta ’93.

The exhibit also marked the return of the Wooden Woman, a life-sized figure brought to campus in 1992 by Jacqueline Dougan Jackson ’50 to greet Le Guin when she arrived to serve as Mackey Chair. Jackson attended the opening with her daughter, Elspeth Jackson ’90, and shared the story of the Wooden Woman with the students, faculty, and community members gathered there.