“Welcome to punk rock literary criticism!” says Philip K. Dick scholar David Gill who is launching a new online course starting January 30 all about the strange, prophetic, and influential author of dozens of essential novels including Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Ubik, and A Scanner Darkly.
“In tribute to its subject, this homespun class will be an irreverent, funny, authentic, flawed, heartfelt, and hopefully deeply affecting 16-week deep dive into the life and work of Philip K. Dick,” Gill says.
From the course description:
Wanna know what made science fiction’s most enigmatic genius tick? Wanna find the hidden autobiography and obscure literary references in his writing? Take a deep dive into the luminous brilliance of Dick’s fiction and the uncanny weirdness of his life with David Gill, a scholar who has studied PKD for more than two decades, and is currently at work on a full-length biography. The class features an all-star roster of Dick-Head guests including novelist Jonathan Lethem, counter culture thinker Erik Davis, PKD biographer Gregg Rickman, PKD friends (novelist) Tim Powers and (“dark-haired girl”) Linda Levy, PKD scholars, Sam Umland, Umberto Rossi, DH Wilson, DE Wittkower (editor of Philip K. Dick and Philosophy), and Gabriel Mckee.
The sixteen-week zoom, 32 session course will look at the author’s biography, including his traumatic infancy, drug use, and mystical experiences. It will also offer close readings of over a dozen novels, multiple biographies, academic articles, and secondary sources[…]
David Gill has studied the life and work of Philip K. Dick for more than twenty years. He started his Dick-centric blog, The Total Dick-Head (totaldickhead.blogspot.com) in 2007 and the site has garnered more than a million views since. He teaches writing and literature at San Francisco State University. Gill write footnotes for Dick’s Exegesis (the notes the science fiction author made regarding his ‘mystical experiences’ in the 1970s) published in 2011. In 2012 Gill organized a “Dick-Fest” at San Francisco State University which was attended by more than 130 fans and scholars from all over the world.
The course is $185 for 32 sessions over 16 weeks. Sign up here via Morbid Anatomy: “Total Dick-Head’s Guide to Philip K. Dick, Taught by Dick Scholar David Gill, Beginning January 30“
