We often look at science fiction or speculative fiction as a genre that allows us to envision other possible pasts, presents, and futures, with current trends tending toward darker futures, or dystopias. This course will ask what the political role of science fiction has as a literary genre. Is it simply escapism, or a form of critique? Or does it have the possibility of effecting change through artistic and imaginative means? We will specifically be reading from a queer/transfeminist lens, as well as a critical race/decolonial perspective to see how science fiction novels imagine other worlds of liberation. Black and Indigenous queer/trans writers use science fiction to imagine the (im)possible worlds of survival and thriving that are exempted by racial capitalism, colonialism, and the state. We will read a selection of stories and novels from the history of science fiction along with theoretical texts to understand science fiction as a genre that has provided a key space for theorizing resistance and liberation and a place where artistic and political imagination combine.
