Descriptif

To what extent can science fiction be considered a biopolitical genre?  

To answer this question, we will need to examine biopolitics, a field of inquiry that lies at the intersection of multiple disciplines in the arts, humanities and sciences, and that addresses a vast array of issues related to the life and well-being of individuals and entire populations.  

We must also make inquiries into the nature and aims of science fiction as a genre. The first indisputable work of SF, Frankenstein, was published roughly around the time when major advances in the life sciences and biotechnologies began to accelerate. Many of the genre’s primary themes and preoccupations, you will discover, overlap with that of biopolitics.  

Together, we will analyze and discuss works of SF in light of these ideas. Works to be studied include literary texts such as Frankenstein, the Cthulhu Mythos, Brave New World, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Handmaid’s Tale, together with excerpts from films such as Planet of the Apes, Gattaca, Children of Men, Contagion, The Three Body Problem, the Alien and Blade Runner franchises, and more.  

Issues to be discussed may include: reproduction and sexuality; racial violence and ethnic cleansing; slavery and colonialism; migration and immigration control; security and surveillance; police and military policies; corporal punishment; digital and mass communications; biotechnologies and biocapitalism; health management and disease control; animal rights and ecology; the development of human augmentation, AI, cybernetic organisms and synthetic lifeforms, and more.    

As a genre populated with a variety of non-, trans- or post- humans, SF ultimately inquires what it means to be human and who or what decides what is and is not human. There is perhaps no more urgent question in the world today.