Postcolonial Science Fiction

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course offers students an introduction to francophone Maghrebi speculative fiction, and its relationship to postcolonial literary studies. Class readings will draw broadly from across the genre of speculative fiction, including science fiction novels, YA fantasy, dystopian narratives, and fairy tales, all written by authors either from the Maghreb or of Maghrebi descent. As we read, we will examine the relationship between the speculative mode found in these works, and issues in postcolonial literary studies. As Jessica Langer argues in Postcolonialism and Science Fiction,“The figure of the alien – extraterrestrial, technological, human-hybrid or otherwise – and the figure of the far-away planet ripe for the taking are deep and abiding twin signifiers in science fiction... [and] these two signifiers are, in fact, the very same twin myths of colonialism.” Taking these “twin myths” as a point of departure, this course will ask how authors have used what is often assumed to be a “Western” or even “colonial” genre, and repurposed it to explore questions of revolution, decolonization, postcoloniality, and globalization.