DSM6123 - Science Fiction: Speculative Storytelling

Objectives:

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

1 - Demonstrate an understanding of the science fiction genre and its cultural significance drawing on suitable theoretical approaches;
2 - Critically evaluate a wide range of science fiction texts across an equally large variety of media; and,
3 - Produce a nuanced creative writing project that synthesises storytelling skills specific to the science fiction genre.

Content:

This module explores the genre of science fiction across a range of texts in various media (literature, film, TV, graphic novels, interactive narratives, etc.) and across a range of historical and contemporary cultural contexts.

Considering the ways that the genre has been formed through diverse representations of science, technology, progress, future and past, you will study how sci-fi has survived many mutations itself: from the radiated adventurers of superhero fiction to the clockwork mechanisms of steampunk.

You will consider the cultural importance of science fiction’s speculative narratives and the way in which the genre has been used to allegorise and satirise numerous important subjects such as utopias and dystopias, modernity, ontology, posthumanism, the monstrous, race and gender.

The module connects with the rest of your degree programme by building on the theoretical and practice-led skills that you have developed across all your modules across both Level 4 and 5. Significantly, it will invite you to consider the intersections between theory and practice by ensuring that your theoretical understanding of the genre informs your creative writing skills. Science fiction is a deeply significant genre that is enacted whenever creative practitioners speculate upon the world as we know it to be. This module will foreground the ways in which this genre has charted a path forwards for the creative media industries.

Learning and Teaching Information:

You will be taught in one block, broken down into two distinct elements. The first of these will be a workshop, with an introductory lecture element, where a new subject will be introduced each week. The second will be a screening that will explore the subject in practice and determine the post-activity exercise that will inform student feedback and discussion.

Lectures
Hours: 20
Intended Group Size: 20-45

Workshops
Hours: 20

Screenings
Hours: 40
Intended Group Size: 20-45

Guided independent study
Hours: 220



Further Details Relating to Assessment

Essay - The first assignment in this module is an essay where you will analyse the allegorical identity of a science fiction text of your choice. Your subject may be from any media of interest to you, i.e. film, tv, comics, literature, theatre, music, etc. but you must place your chosen text in the context of the cultural debates that inform its acts of speculation.

Creative Project - The second assignment is a creative writing project. This can take the form of a media of interest to you, i.e. short story, short film, podcast, etc. but needs to be delivered in the form of prose or script. This piece of writing will demonstrate your ability to put the skills and standards exemplified within speculative fiction into practice.

There will be a formative assessment within the first four weeks. Feedback will be available throughout the module. Full details regarding all assessments are contained on Moodle and within the Module Handbook.

Assessment:

Fact File

Module Coordinator - PRS_CODE=
Level - 6
Credit Value - 30
Pre-Requisites - NONE
Semester(s) Offered -

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