American and Russian Science Fiction: Story-Worlds in Dialogue

This seminar examines sci-fi in Anglo-American literature and film with special emphasis on its dialogue with the Russian and East-European tradition. We will follow the trajectory of the genre: from time-travel to dystopias; from interplanetary encounters to robots; from human-machine hybrids to questions of gender and ethnicity. We will analyze the questions, hopes and anxieties that these narratives articulate, the imagery they employ, and the features of the story-worlds they construct. We will investigate how questions of authorship and agency, and the definitions of the self, the other, the human and posthuman are framed and negotiated.