Anthropology And Science Fiction

CSP 2037: Anthropology and Science Fiction: Close Encounters of the Cultural Kind

4 intermediate liberal arts

This course brings together anthropology and science fiction to explore how humans think about, narrate, and contest encounters across difference. Through a combination of scholarly texts, fiction, film, and other works, we will investigate how people in different times and places have made sense of what it means to be human in moments when multiple forms of personhood are present. We will investigate why societies tell stories about encounters with the Other, consider how cross-cultural encounters transform societies and their ways of imagining and managing change, and analyze how the idea of difference has shaped anthropology and science fiction. Students will create original works that reflect on and tell new stories about cross-cultural encounters.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)