Course Offerings
The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at KU offers a range of courses on science fiction, speculative fiction, and related topics and genres such as science, technology, and society, fan fiction, and fantasy.
View a list of past courses here.
Check the course links below to see whether specific SF and related courses are currently being offered at KU. Since many of these courses are topics courses, please note the section titles and departmental course descriptions to ensure that the topics of the course(s) offered given semester are relevant to your interests.
View Upcoming Courses
ENGL 508: Contemporary literary Theory Animal Studies
FALL 2024
Instructor: Phillip Drake
26522 | TuTh 09:30 - 10:45 AM | WES 4037 - LAWRENCE
This course examines animals in literature along with the emergence of animal studies as a field of inquiry. Embodying a complicated set of interdisciplinary tools and perspectives, animal studies scholarship prompts exploration into the lives of animals, focusing particularly on interactions between human and nonhuman animals. These bodies and relationships provoke complicated and often uncomfortable questions that challenge conventional understandings of a host of issues, including kinship, care, embodiment, individuality, power, precarity, death, extinction, and living well. Furthermore, interactions between human and nonhuman animals often intersect with constructions of gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sex, inviting consideration of justice and social awareness at various scales, from the body and household to the nation and globe. In addition to covering a diverse range of literature, we will explore various disciplinary (literary, anthropological, biological, ethological, psychological, etc.) and theoretical (queer, postcolonial, feminist, existentialist, poststructural, posthuman, ecocritical, etc.) lineages that animate (and are animated by) multispecies studies. Texts: Ghosh, The Hungry Tide; Ward, Salvage the Bones; Wells, Island of Dr. Moreau; Woolf, Flush, and other literary and critical works that will be posted on Canvas.
ENGL 709: Critical Theory: Animal Studies
FALL 2024
Instructor: Phillip Drake
26527 | TuTh 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM | WES 3001A - LAWRENCE
This course examines animals in literature along with the emergence of animal studies as a field of inquiry. Embodying a complicated set of interdisciplinary tools and perspectives, animal studies scholarship prompts exploration into the lives of animals, focusing particularly on interactions between human and nonhuman animals. These bodies and relationships provoke complicated and often uncomfortable questions that challenge conventional understandings of a host of issues, including kinship, care, embodiment, individuality, power, precarity, death, extinction, and living well. Furthermore, interactions between human and nonhuman animals often intersect with constructions of gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sex, inviting consideration of justice and social awareness at various scales, from the body and household to the nation and globe. In addition to covering a diverse range of literature, we will explore various disciplinary (literary, anthropological, biological, ethological, psychological, etc.) and theoretical (queer, postcolonial, feminist, existentialist, poststructural, posthuman, ecocritical, etc.) lineages that animate (and are animated by) multispecies studies. Texts: Ackerley, We Think the World of You; Ghosh, The Hungry Tide; Kang, The Vegetarian; Ward, Salvage the Bones; Wells, Island of Dr. Moreau; Woolf, Flush, and other literary and critical works that will be posted on Canvas.
ENGL 774: Black Speculative Fiction
FALL 2024
Instructor: Giselle Anatol
22370 | M 4:00-6:00 PM | Wescoe 3001A - LAWRENCE
The term “speculative fiction” was coined by science fiction writer Robert Heinlein in the mid-twentieth century to describe works set either in the future or in the past that speculate about society, time, and space. Instead of science fiction’s narrower focus on scientific and technological ideas, a looser array of styles and genres are encompassed by speculative fiction: utopian fiction, dystopian fiction, fantasy, the gothic, horror, and conventional sci fi. In this class, we will investigate how writers of African descent have employed these genres to question the realities established by colonial regimes, neo-colonial powers, and racist legal, social, and political structures. We will therefore consider postcolonial theory alongside monster theory; how narratives about extraterrestrial aliens tie into contemporary immigration debates; how different writers challenge the rules of "reality," time, and space. Texts will include an array of subgenres and styles, such as ghost stories, dystopian fiction, body horror, secondary world fantasy, space travel, and slipstream. Authors may include Octavia Butler, Maryse Condé, Samuel R. Delany, Nalo Hopkinson, N.K. Jemisin, Victor LaValle, Helen Oyeyemi, Nnedi Okorafor, and Rivers Solomon.
FREN 177 First-Year Seminar: Subversive Science Fiction
FALL 2024
Instructor: Paul Scott
26671 | TuTh 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM | SUM 506 - LAWRENCE
FREN 481: Science Fiction and Fantasy in French
FALL 2024
Instructor: Paul Scott
26668 | TuTh 03:00 - 04:15 PM | WES 4019 - LAWRENCE
Study of the key works in different media in French dealing with the theme and traces the development of science-fiction and fantasy from its beginnings to the present day
FREN 800: Studies in Science Fiction and Fantasy in French
FALL 2024
Instructor: Paul Scott
26668 | TuTh 03:00 - 04:15 PM | WES 4019 - LAWRENCE
HNRS 190: Culture and Science Fiction
FALL 2024
Instructor: Michele Casavant
27810 | W 02:00 - 02:50 PM | JRP 147 - LAWRENCE
ASTR 191: Contemporary Astronomy
FALL 2024
Instructor: Elisabeth Mills
14733 | MWF 12:00 - 12:50 PM | SUM 246 - LAWRENCE
Instructor: Allison Kirkpatrick
26803 | ONLINE
The structure and evolution of the universe, from nearby planets to distant quasars, is examined. Topics include recent discoveries concerning planets, stars, pulsars and black holes as well as their evolution, the structure of the universe today and how it will be in the future. The emphasis is descriptive rather than mathematical. (Same as PHSX 191.) Prerequisite: Eligibility for MATH 101.
ASTR 394: Quest for Extraterrestrial Life
FALL 2024
Instructor: Jennifer Delgado
15329 | MWF 10:00 - 10:50 AM | MAL 2005 - LAWRENCE
An introduction to the search for planets around other stars and for life in the universe beyond the earth. A discussion of the astronomical conditions under which life might form and the biological conditions of life formation and evolution. Methods of searching for extraterrestrial life will also be discussed. Prerequisite: An introductory course in astronomy, biology, or geology.
