S: Speculative Fiction WiSe 2024/25, Mark Stein

In this seminar, we will read and discuss long as well as short speculative fiction while also engaging with theorisations of the genre.
”Speculative fiction” has three different meanings, Marek Oziewicz has suggested: "a subgenre of science fiction that deals with human rather than technological problems, a genre distinct from and opposite to science fiction in its exclusive focus on possible futures, and a super category for all genres that deliberately depart from imitating 'consensus reality' of everyday experience." Speculative fiction encompasses highly diverse forms of non-mimetic narrative which reflects on its cultural role, "especially as opposed to the work performed by mimetic, or realist narratives." Oziewicz considers speculative fiction a tool to "dismantle the traditional Western cultural bias in favor of literature imitating reality." In different ways, "speculative fiction represents a global reaction of human creative imagination struggling to envision a possible future at the time of a major transition from local to global humanity."
Before the semester begins in October 2024, a list of novels to be read will be made available. The short stories which we will discuss will be made available in the course of the winter semester.  

Kurs im HIS-LSF