Hum 133: The Science Fiction Film -- As History

Winter Term, 2004-05

This course has three aims: (1) To introduce students to some of the classic works of the science fiction film from the earliest days of cinema until the present. (2) To analyze such works as aesthetic, historical, and social documents. (3) To show that such films, while describing alternative, hypothetical, and futurist worlds, also serve as a commentary upon and/or a critique of contemporary (to the film) historical, social, political, and ideological systems and attitudes.

Class will meet twice a week: at 7:30 on Tuesday nights in Baxter Lecture Hall to see films and on Thursdays for a two-hour discussion of the film and the weekly readi