LITR263

Science fiction reflects our most fantastic dreams and hopes of technological and social change. Our fears and anxieties too. Sci-Fi’s thought experiments dramatize social, political and historical concerns. Critic Darko Suvin calls it a literature of “cognitive estrangement” that requires us to learn how to read actively to comprehend the fictional universes of Sci-Fi. This course will explore, in broad strokes, the emergence of science fiction as a distinct genre. Readings will vary, but we will consider authors as diverse as Mary Shelley, Philip K. Dick and Octavia Butler. Through selected literary works, films, television, music, art and other materials representing diverse voices from around the world, we will discuss the role of science and the implications of new scientific knowledge and technologies on human society, all living beings and the planet itself. How do biotechnology, genetic engineering and artificial intelligence change our understanding of what constitutes the “human?” Is our notion of “humanity” itself constructed, like other categories of identity such as gender and race? How do math and theories such as relativity or quantum physics transform how we understand our world? If reality is stranger than fiction, as they say, this course is guaranteed to stretch your concept of reality! Cross-listed course: SCIN-263 and LITR-263.