Science fiction: Reimagining Technological Futures

In this course students explore and assess the possible societal impact of emerging technologies through critical analysis of existing sci-fi works that depict technologies, theoretical reflections on the role of narratives and mass media in shaping society’s technological imaginaries, and through the creative process of writing their own science fiction story. This is an interdisciplinary course combining philosophy of technology, critical media studies, and creative writing.
When an emerging technology appears in our lives, there is a race to capture the collective imaginary – how people relate to that technology – by using narratives that frame that technology as beneficial or threatening. In this race, fictional narratives (be those movies, stories or books) play an important role that can have a rippling down effect on how technologies are perceived by society for decades to come. The course will examine the complexities of fictional narratives about emerging technologies and how these narratives shape and feed back into technological innovation, while also discussing how the normativity of technology (its being seen as beneficial or oppressive) is also shaped by the narratives we craft about technology.

The final grade is based on two components:

• Assessment 1: Individual Story Portfolio (70%)
  Includes the short story, drafts, reflection, and the weekly Brightspace assignments as evidence of progress and engagement.

• Assessment 2: Group Research Project (30%)
  Poster presentation on how sci-fi works have influenced imaginaries of technology.

Assesment 1 is graded individually, 

Asessment 2 is graded per group of 2-3 students.

In order to pass the course, a minimal grade of 5.5 should be obtained for both assessments.

In case one grade is less than 5.5, there will be one opportunity to re-upload the assigment in the resit period."

Important note: By enrolling in this course, you acknowledge and agree that you will not use LLM-generared texts in your assignments (either partially or fully generated).

Explanation: Usage of LLMs (such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude etc.) to generate the text used in all the assignments is forbidden. All texts written for this course that are seen by the instructors (including A, B, C and D) need to be original and written by the students themselves. You may use LLMs to brainstorm ideas and do research. In case there is a reasonable suspicion that the assignment contains LLM-generated text, the assignment will be graded as 0. You can appeal these decisions with the examiner board.