Science Fiction

C LIT 242 | Summer 2017

For syllabus and reading list, please contact tokabe@ualberta.ca

What is science fiction? With a focus on narratives that explore the intersection of science, technology and identity politics, students in this course will interpret, analyse and define SF through a selection of classic and contemporary literary texts and films. In addition, this course offers a selection of theoretical and philosophical readings (as supplementary works) to contextualise questions concerning artificial life and intelligence, utopia and dystopia, and issues of race and gender. I also encourage students to think and respond to course materials in creative ways. Students will demonstrate their knowledge of sf by applying and synthesising concepts and major tropes of the genre in a mock publication assignment for the local On Spec a Canadian magazine for the Fantastic

Anonymous Student Testimonials (Selected)

Administered by the University of Alberta Universal Student Rating of Instruction USRI:

"The course was so well done and taught with such good intentions that it drove me to check out what I would need to do to have comparative literature as a double major. This is a major I'd never considered before and it went from not even being a blip on my radar to being something I'd like to have written out on my degree. Prof. Okabe should be taken as a lesson by all professors in all fields about exactly how a class should be taught, and exactly how interest in a subject should be generated."

"Really loved all the class discussion, writing the short story, and the guest lecturers as well. Our instructor was very prepared and since she quickly learned all our names I think it helped up connect and discuss things in class."