Okay, so I’ve given up on any attempt to include fantasy in my intro to speculative literature course — there’s just no way to reasonably squeeze it into a semester. I’m teaching this course again in the spring, so I think I have the option of focusing on fantasy that semester (need to check if that’s okay), which I might do.
But this fall, it’s going to be almost entirely SF. (I say ‘almost entirely’) because I’m reserving the right to be a little flexible if I feel the need.
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I’m finalizing my syllabus now, and IT IS BRUTAL. I’m trying to:
• give them something of a historical sense of the field — major movements, trends, significant authors, etc.
• be as global and inclusive as possible (with the caveat that I’m focused on work written in English)
• focus primarily on work with significant literary merit (IMHO, your analysis may differ)
• give them work I love, with the hopes that they will love it too
• mostly do short stories, because there’s just no room for more than maybe 1-2 (short) novels
• not give them more than they will actually, plausibly, read (it’s a 200-level class)
• fit it all into 15 weeks, which is involving a LOT of killing my darlings. I keep writing down names I want to include, and then cutting them off the list, because there is just no room. GAH.
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This is the first three weeks, and this was the easiest section, and I know that already, some of you are going to want to argue with me that x or y HAS to be on the list. Go ahead and argue — class is at 3 p.m. Monday CST, so you have until then to change my mind. 
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I’m using Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer’s Big Book of Science Fiction for the first half of the course.
Weeks 1-3: Beginnings through Golden Age
“The Star,” H.G. Wells (1897)
“Sultana’s Dream,” Rokheya Shekhawat Hossain (1905)
“The Comet,” W.E.B. Du Bois
“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” Jorge Luis Borges (1940)
“Desertion,” Clifford D. Simak (1944)
“The Star,” Arthur C. Clarke (1955)
“The Game of Rat and Dragon,” Cordwainer Smith (1955)
“The Last Question,” Isaac Asimov (1956)
“Sector General,” James White (1957)
“Pelt,” Carol Emshwiller (1958)
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Pity me.
(Also envy me. This is a dream class to teach…)
(Image is NASA’s recently released Pillars of Creation photo — thanks, NASA!)