Hutton Honors Seminars

This course considers the critical perspectives on our world offered by the imagined worlds of English-language science fiction in a variety of media. We will explore three case studies of adaptation and influence across media: from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, from H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds to Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation, and from Arthur C. Clarke’s short stories and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. In addition, we’ll discuss a range of science fiction that explicitly focuses on media, technology, and communication, including episodes of The Twilight Zone, short stories by Ted Chiang and Octavia Butler, Jordan Peele’s Nope, and Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone’s co-authored novel This Is How You Lose the Time War. Evaluation will be based on attendance and participation, weekly discussion questions, four exercises in close reading/viewing (2 pages each), and two formal essays (5-6 pages each). 

Catalog Information: HON-H 233  GREAT AUTHORS, COMPOSERS, AND ARTISTS

GenEd Information: Approved for the Arts & Humanities requirement of the IU Bloomington General Education program.