Cirrus@Austlit

Students examine the ways in which science fiction texts from the late 19th century to the present construct the relationship between humanity and its 'others', including extraterrestrials, robots, monsters, human/machine or human/animal hybrids, as well as inanimate natural phenomena. Particular attention is paid to encounters which disturb existing definitions of the human and/or explore the possibilities of a post-human perspective, as well as those which highlight the arbitrariness of the categories used to class human bodies and behaviour (such as race, gender or sexuality). Students have the opportunity to study seminal science fiction novels and films from the nineteenth century to the present day.