ENGL 2341

Aliens. Sorcerers. Time travel. Mythic quests. Why do these motifs recur in the genres of Science Fiction and Fantasy? In this course, we will survey a range of historical and contemporary Science Fiction and/or Fantasy texts written over a period of at least a century in order to trace the literary development of these speculative and fantastical writings. We will learn to identify and write about genre conventions from a variety of critical perspectives with an eye toward deciphering the socio-cultural messages intertwined in the arts of worldbuilding and speculation. The texts will cover multiple historical periods and may be drawn from several forms such as novels, short stories, graphic novels, pulp magazines, films, TV, or digital narratives.