Freshman Seminar: Science Fiction and Cultural Modernity

3 units

Science Fiction has been called the twentieth century's most characteristic genre because it addresses many of the issues that are central to the concept of cultural modernity: utopian/dystopian visions, technological development/disasters, mass media/mass culture, rapid social change, cultural clashes, and encounters with the alien other (differentiated by gender, race, class, etc.). What is interesting about works of science fiction is not so much what they have to say about an imagined future, but what they tell us about the culture that created them. In this course we will think and write critically about key themes from approximately four science fiction novels (such as Brave New World and War of the Worlds) and from a range of science fiction films and television series (such as the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, A Clockwork Orange, Blade Runner, and Star Trek: The Next Generation) in order to examine how science fiction comments on the cultural present.