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ENGLISH 313-0 : Is There Anybody Out There?: Conversations with Other Worlds
Description
An unidentified flying object has landed in Evanston and YOU are asked to make first contact with extraterrestrial life. What would you say? Or, perhaps more urgently, how would you say it?
In this course, we will discuss representations of “alien” communication in a broad range of science fiction media. We will encounter lifeforms that speak a language without an “I,” interplanetary voyagers who converse in a language without past or present, and a now seemingly all-too real “artificial intelligence machine” that can generate and convey information instantaneously. From “space opera” to “solarpunk" we will survey a host of characters that dare to ask “is there anybody out there?” and receive some shocking responses!
Texts include: Arrival (dir. Dennis Villeneuve, 2016), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Samuel Delany’s Babel-17 (1966), and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (1974).
| Summer 2024 | ||||
| Start/End Dates | Day(s) | Time | Building | Section |
| 06/17/24 - 08/11/24 | W | 6 – 9:30 p.m. | University Hall 101 | 20 |
| Instructor | Course Location | Status | CAESAR Course ID | |
| Syvertsen, Adam | Evanston Campus | Open | 42478 | |