At the height of its potential, what science fiction does best is make space to belong for those who feel that they don’t belong. Nothing says I don’t fit in here like stories about aliens, time travel, or life on a distant planet. In this course, we will study a variety of science fiction novels across two centuries—including Mary Shelley, Franz Kafka, Neil Gaiman, and Octavia Butler—while exploring themes of isolation, queerness, race, and belonging. We will ask such questions as: How do people draw boundaries around personhood and belonging? Who stands to gain and who stands to lose when these boundaries are drawn? What are the ethical implications of anthropomorphizing nonhuman bodies? When identities and families are threatened, how might science fiction stories become a salvation in understanding how humans make homes?

Using a variety of theoretical lenses, students will develop an understanding of the evolution of sci-fi writing while considering thematic questions widely applicable beyond the genre. Students will learn to question, challenge, and explore pre-conceived notions of queerness, race, isolation, and belonging by making connections between novels that encourage interpretations and arguments of both literary and socio-political caliber. Students will leave the course emerging literary citizens, capable of performing close readings of texts, drawing conclusions, and crafting arguments about the ways in which we all define identity, family, and community in search of a home.