CLS2080

Science fiction: from monsters to cyborgs

Andrew Milner

8 points - 2 hours per week - Second semester - Clayton

Objectives Upon completion of this subject students should be able to demonstrate some familiarity with the history of the genre and with various theoretical approaches to its study; demonstrate a critical understanding of the debates over the genre's social role; articulate the analytical skills, theoretical vocabularies and conceptual apparatuses studied in the subject; demonstrate a sense of their own personal and cultural reflexivity; write clear, grammatically and syntactically appropriate, independent essays on the topics chosen for assessment.

Synopsis This subject will introduce students to contemporary discussion and debate about science fiction. It will examine: (i) various theoretical approaches to the analysis of science fiction; (ii) the historical development of the genre from the gothic through to cyberpunk; (iii) the debates over the genre's social role, whether as a source for the stabilisation or for the subversion of social norms; (iv) a number of key science fiction texts, drawn from the novel, film and television. The general framework will be comparative and historical and the general approach will be from a cultural studies perspective, which will seek to problematise the conventional binary oppositions between high and low culture, literature and fiction. Students will be allowed a choice in presenting their own reading and interests.

Assessment Seminar paper (1500 words): 20% - Essay (2500 words): 50% - Examination (2 hours): 30%

Preliminary reading

Parrinder P Science fiction: Its criticism and teaching Methuen

Prescribed texts

Atwood M The handmaid's tale Houghton Mifflin
Dick P K Do androids dream of electric sheep? Grafton
Gibson W Neuromancer Grafton
Le Guin U K The left hand of darkness Ace Books
Lem S Solaris Penguin
Orwell G Nineteen eighty-four OUP
Piercy M Woman on the edge of time Kopf
Robinson K S Pacific edge Unwin Hyman
Zamiatin E We Cape

Recommended texts

Aldiss B Trillion year spree: The history of science fiction Atheneum
Broderick D Reading by starlight: Postmodern science fiction Routledge
Clute J and Nicholls P (eds) The encyclopedia of science fiction Orbit
Slusser G and Shippey T (eds) Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the future of narrative U Georgia P
Suvin D Metamorphoses of Science Fiction Yale U P

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