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COMP_LIT 211-0 : Wastelands of the Future: Global Science Fictions (Wastelands of the Future: Global Science Fictions)

Description

In the “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot mourns the desolation of Europe after the Great War over a century ago; the landscapes we inhabit today are in a constant state of desolation, amidst ecological catastrophe, settler colonial violence, and viruses rampaging through the global population. Put simply, our world is wasting away.

Through works of science fiction, this course will explore “waste” in all of its senses: objects, spaces, and especially peoples, considered to be left over, unneeded, or in excess. How do Black, Asian and/or queer science fiction writers represent waste in their iterations of the future? How are transnational structures of oppression such as race, caste or gender-based violence recreated and problematized by these texts?

The course will include contemporary works of science fiction by Chen Qiufan, Rivers Solomon, Saad K. Hossein, and others, as well as theoretical readings on environmental justice, new materialisms, as well as the energy humanities. Ultimately, our meditations on waste, decay and desolation will allow us to understand what it means to be a human in a world of broken images.