Course Details
- Online, asynchronous
- 5 weeks | July 3 to August 4, 2023
- 3 credits | $300
- Last day to register: June 15, 2023
Course Overview
Every generation envisions the future differently. What kind of future do you forecast? What will the world be like in 10, 50, 200, 5000 years from now? Who will be the future humans?
These questions kick off our study of fictional futures. We will examine stories about runaway technology, ecological collapse, space utopias and future humans. We will study short stories, novels, television shows and films for their predictions about the future and what they can tell us about the present.
Stories set in the future seem to follow different rules. We will discern how future fictions function and consider how each portrayal of the future tests and reveals the limits of imagination. We will encounter a number of future fiction sub-genres, including science fiction, speculative fiction, Afrofuturism, and climate fiction. Texts will likely include stories by E.M. Forster, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Cixin Liu as well as Star Trek: TNG, Snowpiercer, and Wall-E.
Course Advantages
Although this course will not teach you how to predict the future, you will learn how to interpret trends in future thinking and better understand what future fictions reveal about the present. When you take this course you will join a seminar community dedicated to exploring questions about how the imagination works and learning how to write and think about art and culture. You will write short and long interpretations of the texts we study, engaging with each other's ideas throughout the term. Finally, this course will offer you an opportunity to improve your skills as a writer. Through analytical essays, discussion posts, and online chats, you’ll gain valuable experience with the sorts of assignments you’ll find in many other college courses. Above all, in this course you will learn how to develop and ask good questions about complicated texts.
