Science fiction rarely tells us much about the future. It tells us a great deal about the present: how we work, love, and live together, how institutions treat the people they hold, and how we look at those we consider strangers. A man who writes intimate letters for strangers falls in love with his operating system. An alien drives around Glasgow picking up men. Prisoners are sent into space as the subjects of an experiment. Each of these films asks a question that sociology also asks, and each gives us a shared object to talk and write about in English.
This course uses one film per session to practise the English you will need in professional and academic life: presenting to a group, leading and taking part in a discussion, responding to other people's arguments, and writing in professional genres such as letters, emails, press releases and consent forms. We watch the films together in class. From the second session onwards, you run the class yourselves in pairs or small groups.
Donna Haraway's work runs through the course, from "A Cyborg Manifesto" to "Situated Knowledges", alongside readings in sociology and philosophy chosen for each film. A recurring question is methodological: how do we observe, question and study people, and at what cost to them?
All levels of English are welcome. What counts is preparation, participation and progress.
- Enseignant éditeur: Hall Nicole
- Enseignant éditeur: Saraceno Marco
