MEDIA 319
Science Fiction Media
Please note: this is archived course information from 2019 for MEDIA 319.
Description
This course examines science fiction as a media genre. While sci-fi is hugely popular and entertaining, it also plays a unique role in contemporary public culture through its tendency to tackle big and controversial issues facing humanity, and to expand our political, philosophical, social and scientific imagination through creative worldbuilding and futuristic speculation.
Some of the big themes of science fiction that we look at in this course include:
- Alien encounters
- Exploration and colonisation of outer space
- Post-human futures (robots, artificial intelligence and cyborgs)
- Scientific advances and bioethics
- Utopias and dystopias
- Apocalypse and the collapse of civilisation
- The real and the virtual
- Time travel narratives
These themes are approached through key examples of science fiction texts. These are usually films but examples may also be drawn from a range of other media such as TV, literature and computer games.
Availability 2019
Semester 1
Lecturer(s)
Coordinator(s) Associate Professor Luke Goode
Points
MEDIA 319: 15 points
Prerequisites
30 points at Stage II in Media, Film and Television
Restrictions
FTVMS 224, FTVMS 319, MEDIA 224
