HU Credits: 4

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: International Relations

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Dr Oded Lowenheim

Coordinator Email: oded.lowenheim@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: Monday 10:30-12:00

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Oded Lowenheim

Course/Module description:
The literary genre of science fiction (SF) can be used as a critical futuristic mirrot. Since the 19th century, science fiction writers dealing with various aspects of social and political criticism are using fantasy literature, "speculative" and futuristic descriptions. This course introduces students to the field of science fiction by discussing several genres within it, such as utopia - dystopia, alternate history, encounters with alien civilizations, technology and politics, and more. We will explore the political aspects found in science fiction and ask how we can highlight and understand aspects and directions of contemporary "realistic" politics throught these stories. To this end we will focus on several works of science fiction, both written and filmed. We'll ponder about the power and influence of social and political criticism like this, and see how we can learn about different historical periods from science fiction written during them. The purpose of the course is not necessarily to provide an answer to the big question of "life, the universe, and everything" (this answer, of course, has been given elesehwere...), but to raise more specific questions for discussion, and present different approaches discussed in the context of science fiction literature.

Course/Module aims:
Expansion of political thinking ability and familiarity with the science fiction genre introducing narrative tools. Similarly, thinking about fundamental political issues through allegorical and literary tools.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
Submit a seminar paper that will be an analytical article on an issue which illustrates a link between politics SCI-FI, or write a SCI-FI story / screenplay which will be informed by political thought and terms.

Attendance requirements(%):
80

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: discussions in class, watching parts of movies, reading SCI-FI novels.

Course/Module Content:
(1) IR as narrative and political imagination.
(2) What is the relationship between science fiction IR?
(3) Science Science Fiction and Politics: SETI, UFO and the world state.
(4) Friendly aliens? "Childhood's End" and Independence Day
(5) How to write a seminar paper and research proposal in this course
(6) Miserable aliens and the state of emergency: scenes from the movie District 9
(7) The lack of ability to communicate with Extraterrestrial Intelligence? "Solaris" and "Roadside Picnic"
(8) The tragic vision of human political destiny: A Canticle to Leibowitz by Walter Miller
(9) (nano) technology and international politics
(10) War, peace and Nano - Technology: The Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman.
(11) The deep internalization of War: A Taste of Armageddon, Star Trek
(12) Alternate History of the Jews in America: "The Plot Against America" by Philip Roth and "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" by Michael Chabon
(13) Alternate History of Israel
(14) "Manuscripts do not burn"? Read "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury.

Required Reading:
(1) יחב"ל כנראטיב ודמיון פוליטי.
* Carol Cohn, “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals,” Signs Vol.14 No.4 (Summer 1987), pp. 687-718.
או:
* Oded Löwenheim, “The 'I' in IR: An Autoethnographic Account,” Review of International Studies, Vol.36 No.4 (October 2010), pp. 1025-1048.
קריאת רשות:
 Howard E. McCurdy,“Fiction and Imagination: How They Affect Public Administration,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 55, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 1995), pp. 499-506.-
 Benjamin J. Muller, “Securing the Political Imagination: Popular Culture, the Security Dispositif and the Biometric State,” Security Dialogue 39(2-3) (2008), pp. 199-220.


(2) מה הקשר בין מד"ב ליחב"ל?
• Barry Buzan, “America in Space: The International Relations of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica,” Millennium, 39(1) (August 2010), pp. 175-180.
• Juta Weldes, “Globalization is Science Fiction,” Millennium 30(3) (2001), pp. 647-667.
• Richard Devetak, “The Gothic scene of international relations: ghosts, monsters, terror and the sublime after September 11,” Review of International Studies 31(4) (October 2005), pp. 621-643.

קריאת רשות:
 Abigail E. Ruane and Patrick James The international relations of Middle Earth:Learning from The Lord of the Rings (University of Michigan Press, 2012).
 Daniel W. Drezner, Theories of International Politics and Zombies (Princeton University Press, 2011).
- Jutta Weldes, “Popular Culture, Science Fiction, and World Politics: Exploring Intertextual Relations,” in J. Weldes (ed.), To Seek Out New Worlds: Exploring Links between Science Fiction and World Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 1-31.
- Robbie B. H. Goh, “Consuming Spaces: Clive Barker, William Gibson and the Cultural Poetics of Postmodern Fantasy,” Social Semiotics, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2000), pp. 21-39.
- Jorg Kustermans and Erik Ringmar, “Modernity, boredom, and war: a suggestive essay,” Review of International Studies Vol. 37(4) (October 2011), pp 1775-1792.

(3) ממדע למדע בדיוני ופוליטיקה: SETI, העב"ם והמדינה העולמית.
• Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall, “Sovereignty and the UFO,” Political Theory Volume 36 Number 4 August 2008, 607-633.
קריאת רשות:
 Alexander Wendt, “Why a World State is Inevitable,” European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 9, No. 4, 491-542 (2003).
 Raymond Duvall and Jonathan Havercroft, “Taking sovereignty out of this world: space weapons and empire of the future,” Review of International Studies 34 (2008), pp. 755-775.
 Albert A. Harrison, “The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Astrosociology and Cultural Aspects,” Astropolitics: The International Journal of Space Politics & Policy 9(1) (April 2011), pp. 63-83.
 Steven Dick, “The postbiological universe,” Acta Astronautica 62 (2008) 499 – 504.
 Steven J. Dick, “The postbiological universe and our future in space,” Futures 41 (2009) 578–580.
 Jonathan F. Galloway, “An international relations perspective on the consequences of SETI,” Space Policy 1996 12 (2): 135-137.

(4) חייזרים מיטיבים? "קץ הילדות" ו-Independence Day
- קיראו את: ארתור ס. קלארק, קץ הילדות (עם עובד: 1976).
• Julie Webber, “Independence Day as a Cosmopolitan Moment: Teaching International Relations,” International Studies Perspectives (2005) 6, 374–392.
קריאת רשות:
- David N. Samuelson, “"Childhood's End": A Median Stage of Adolescence?” Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring, 1973), pp. 4-17.
- Carl D. Malmgren, “Self and Other in SF: Alien Encounters,” Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Mar., 1993), pp. 15-33.


(5) שיעור הדרכה על הכנת הצעת מחקר וכתיבת עבודה סמינריונית
* Jeffrey W. Knopf, “Doing a Literature Review,” PS: Political Science & Politics 39(1) (2006), pp. 127-132.

(6) חייזרים אומללים ומצב החירום: צפייה בקטעים מהסרט District 9
• Greg Bourke, “Bare Life's Bare Essentials: When All You've Got is Hope – The State of Exception in The Road, District 9, and Blindness,” Law, Culture and the Humanities (February 2012), pp. 1-24.

רשות:
- Lorenzo Veracini, “District 9 and Avatar: Science Fiction and Settler Colonialism,” Journal of Intercultural Studies, 32:4 (July 2011), pp. 355-367.
- Michael Valdez Moses , Lucy Valerie Graham , John Marx , Gerald Gaylard , Ralph Goodman & Stefan Helgesson, “District 9: A Roundtable,” Safundi: The Journal of South African
and American Studies Vol. 11, Nos 1–2 (January–April 2010), pp. 155–175.

(7) חוסר היכולת לתקשר עם אינטיליגנציה חוץ-ארצית? מד"ב שמעבר למסך הברזל. קיראו את סולאריס של סטאניסב לם ואת פיקניק בשולי הדרך של האחים ארקדי ובוריס סטרוגטצקי.
* Carl Tighe, “Stanisław Lem: Socio-Political Sci-Fi,” The Modern Language Review 94(3) (1999), pp. 758-74.
* Ann Weinstone, “Resisting Monsters: Notes on Solaris,” Science Fiction Studies 21(2) (1994), pp. 173-190.
* Stanislaw Lem, Peter Engel, John Sigda, “An Interview With Stanislaw Lem,” The Missouri Review, Volume 7, Number 2, 1984, pp. 218-237
* Stanislaw Lem, Elsa Schieder and R. M. P, “About the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic,” Science Fiction Studies 10(3) (1983), pp. 317-332.
* Elana Gomel, “The Poetics of Censorship: Allegory as Form and Ideology in the Novels of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky,” Science Fiction Studies 22(1) (1995), pp. 87-105.

(8) החזון הטרגי של הגורל הפוליטי האנושי: המנון לליבוביץ מאת וולטר מילר (יש לקרוא את הספר לפני השיעור).
• Dominic Manganiello, “History as Judgment and Promise in "A Canticle for Leibowitz",” Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jul., 1986), pp. 159-169.
קריאת רשות:
- Michael Alan Bennett, “The Theme of Responsibility in Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz",” The English Journal, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Apr., 1970), pp. 484-489.

(9) (ננו) טכנולוגיה ופוליטיקה בינ"ל.
* Thomas P. Hughes, “Technological Momentum,” in Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (eds.), Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism (MIT Press, 1994), pp.101-113.
- J. Storrs Hall, “Utility Fog: The Stuff That Dreams are Made of,” in Nanotechnolgy: Molecular Speculations on Global Abundance (MIT Press, 1996), pp. 161-183.

(10) מלחמה, שלום וננו-טכנולוגיה: שלום לנצח של ג'ו הולדמן. קיראו את הספר, ואת:
* Derek Gregory, “From a View to a Kill : Drones and Late Modern War,” Theory, Culture & Society Vol. 28(7- 8) (2011), pp. 188-215.
OR
*Oded Löwenheim, The Politics of the Trail: Reflexive Mountain Biking along the Frontier of Jerusalem (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, forthcoming in 2014), Introduction chapter.
קריאת רשות:
- Charles E. Gannon, “Imag(in)ing Tomorrow’s Wars and Weapons,” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 21(2) (2009), pp. 198-208.
- Chris Hables Gray, “'There Will Be War!': Future War Fantasies and Militaristic Science Fiction in the 1980s,” Science Fiction Studies 21(3) (1994), pp. 315-336.
- Aaron Schwabach, “Kosovo: Virtual War and International Law,” Law and Literature 15(1) 2003, pp. 1-21.

(11) ההפנמה העמוקה של המלחמה: A Taste of Armageddon, Star Trek
• Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, “Cold War Pop Culture and the Image of U.S. Foreign Policy: The Perspective of the Original Star Trek Series,” Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 7, No. 4, Fall 2005, pp. 74–103.
קריאת רשות:
 Iver B. Neumann, “`Grab a Phaser, Ambassador': Diplomacy in Star Trek,” Millennium - Journal of International Studies 30(3) (2001), pp. 603-24.

12. היסטוריה חלופית של היהודים באמריקה. דיון ב-הקנוניה נגד אמריקה של פיליפ רות' ו-איגוד השוטרים היידיים של מייקל שייבון.
• Gavriel Rosenfeld, “Why Do We Ask ‘What If?’ Reflections on the Function of Alternate History,” History and Theory 41(4), 2002, pp. 90-103.
• T. Austin Graham, “On the Possibility of an American Holocaust: Philip Roth's The Plot Against America,” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory 63.3 (2007) 119-149.
• Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, “What Almost Was: The Politics of the Contemporary Alternate History Novel,” American Studies, Volume 50, Number 3/4, Fall/Winter 2009, pp. 63-83, p. 65.
• Sarah Phillips Casteel, “Jews among the Indians: The Fantasy of Indigenization in Mordecai Richler's and Michael Chabon's Northern Narratives,” Contemporary Literature, Volume 50, Number 4, Winter 2009, 775-810.

13. היסטוריה חלופית של מדינת ישראל: יאיר חסדיאל, תל אביב (כנרת, 2013); יואב אבני, הרצל אמר (עם עובד 2011); נאוה סמל, אישראל (ידיעות ספרים, 2005); תיאודור הרצל, תל אביב (בבל, 2011) . עיינו גם באתר "מדינת וויימאר": http://medinatweimar.org/

14. "כתבי יד אינם נשרפים"? קיראו את פרנהייט 451 של ריי ברדבורי.
* Rodney A. Smolla, “The Life and the Mind and a Life of Meaning: Reflections on Fahrenheit 451,” Michigan Law Review 6 (2009), pp. 881-894.
* Angel Galdon Rodriguez, “Starting to Hate the State: The beginning of the character's dissidence in dystopian literature and films,” Altre Modernita 3(2010), pp. 166-173.
- Peter Sisario, “A Study of the Allusions in Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451,” The English Journal, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Feb., 1970), pp. 201-205+212.

Additional Reading Material:
(1) יחב"ל כנראטיב ודמיון פוליטי.
* Carol Cohn, “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals,” Signs Vol.14 No.4 (Summer 1987), pp. 687-718.
או:
* Oded Löwenheim, “The 'I' in IR: An Autoethnographic Account,” Review of International Studies, Vol.36 No.4 (October 2010), pp. 1025-1048.
קריאת רשות:
 Howard E. McCurdy,“Fiction and Imagination: How They Affect Public Administration,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 55, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 1995), pp. 499-506.-
 Benjamin J. Muller, “Securing the Political Imagination: Popular Culture, the Security Dispositif and the Biometric State,” Security Dialogue 39(2-3) (2008), pp. 199-220.


(2) מה הקשר בין מד"ב ליחב"ל?
• Barry Buzan, “America in Space: The International Relations of Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica,” Millennium, 39(1) (August 2010), pp. 175-180.
• Juta Weldes, “Globalization is Science Fiction,” Millennium 30(3) (2001), pp. 647-667.
• Richard Devetak, “The Gothic scene of international relations: ghosts, monsters, terror and the sublime after September 11,” Review of International Studies 31(4) (October 2005), pp. 621-643.

קריאת רשות:
 Abigail E. Ruane and Patrick James The international relations of Middle Earth:Learning from The Lord of the Rings (University of Michigan Press, 2012).
 Daniel W. Drezner, Theories of International Politics and Zombies (Princeton University Press, 2011).
- Jutta Weldes, “Popular Culture, Science Fiction, and World Politics: Exploring Intertextual Relations,” in J. Weldes (ed.), To Seek Out New Worlds: Exploring Links between Science Fiction and World Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 1-31.
- Robbie B. H. Goh, “Consuming Spaces: Clive Barker, William Gibson and the Cultural Poetics of Postmodern Fantasy,” Social Semiotics, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2000), pp. 21-39.
- Jorg Kustermans and Erik Ringmar, “Modernity, boredom, and war: a suggestive essay,” Review of International Studies Vol. 37(4) (October 2011), pp 1775-1792.

(3) ממדע למדע בדיוני ופוליטיקה: SETI, העב"ם והמדינה העולמית.
• Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall, “Sovereignty and the UFO,” Political Theory Volume 36 Number 4 August 2008, 607-633.
קריאת רשות:
 Alexander Wendt, “Why a World State is Inevitable,” European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 9, No. 4, 491-542 (2003).
 Raymond Duvall and Jonathan Havercroft, “Taking sovereignty out of this world: space weapons and empire of the future,” Review of International Studies 34 (2008), pp. 755-775.
 Albert A. Harrison, “The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Astrosociology and Cultural Aspects,” Astropolitics: The International Journal of Space Politics & Policy 9(1) (April 2011), pp. 63-83.
 Steven Dick, “The postbiological universe,” Acta Astronautica 62 (2008) 499 – 504.
 Steven J. Dick, “The postbiological universe and our future in space,” Futures 41 (2009) 578–580.
 Jonathan F. Galloway, “An international relations perspective on the consequences of SETI,” Space Policy 1996 12 (2): 135-137.

(4) חייזרים מיטיבים? "קץ הילדות" ו-Independence Day
- קיראו את: ארתור ס. קלארק, קץ הילדות (עם עובד: 1976).
• Julie Webber, “Independence Day as a Cosmopolitan Moment: Teaching International Relations,” International Studies Perspectives (2005) 6, 374–392.
קריאת רשות:
- David N. Samuelson, “"Childhood's End": A Median Stage of Adolescence?” Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring, 1973), pp. 4-17.
- Carl D. Malmgren, “Self and Other in SF: Alien Encounters,” Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Mar., 1993), pp. 15-33.


(5) שיעור הדרכה על הכנת הצעת מחקר וכתיבת עבודה סמינריונית
* Jeffrey W. Knopf, “Doing a Literature Review,” PS: Political Science & Politics 39(1) (2006), pp. 127-132.

(6) חייזרים אומללים ומצב החירום: צפייה בקטעים מהסרט District 9
• Greg Bourke, “Bare Life's Bare Essentials: When All You've Got is Hope – The State of Exception in The Road, District 9, and Blindness,” Law, Culture and the Humanities (February 2012), pp. 1-24.

רשות:
- Lorenzo Veracini, “District 9 and Avatar: Science Fiction and Settler Colonialism,” Journal of Intercultural Studies, 32:4 (July 2011), pp. 355-367.
- Michael Valdez Moses , Lucy Valerie Graham , John Marx , Gerald Gaylard , Ralph Goodman & Stefan Helgesson, “District 9: A Roundtable,” Safundi: The Journal of South African
and American Studies Vol. 11, Nos 1–2 (January–April 2010), pp. 155–175.

(7) חוסר היכולת לתקשר עם אינטיליגנציה חוץ-ארצית? מד"ב שמעבר למסך הברזל. קיראו את סולאריס של סטאניסב לם ואת פיקניק בשולי הדרך של האחים ארקדי ובוריס סטרוגטצקי.
* Carl Tighe, “Stanisław Lem: Socio-Political Sci-Fi,” The Modern Language Review 94(3) (1999), pp. 758-74.
* Ann Weinstone, “Resisting Monsters: Notes on Solaris,” Science Fiction Studies 21(2) (1994), pp. 173-190.
* Stanislaw Lem, Peter Engel, John Sigda, “An Interview With Stanislaw Lem,” The Missouri Review, Volume 7, Number 2, 1984, pp. 218-237
* Stanislaw Lem, Elsa Schieder and R. M. P, “About the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic,” Science Fiction Studies 10(3) (1983), pp. 317-332.
* Elana Gomel, “The Poetics of Censorship: Allegory as Form and Ideology in the Novels of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky,” Science Fiction Studies 22(1) (1995), pp. 87-105.

(8) החזון הטרגי של הגורל הפוליטי האנושי: המנון לליבוביץ מאת וולטר מילר (יש לקרוא את הספר לפני השיעור).
• Dominic Manganiello, “History as Judgment and Promise in "A Canticle for Leibowitz",” Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jul., 1986), pp. 159-169.
קריאת רשות:
- Michael Alan Bennett, “The Theme of Responsibility in Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz",” The English Journal, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Apr., 1970), pp. 484-489.

(9) (ננו) טכנולוגיה ופוליטיקה בינ"ל.
* Thomas P. Hughes, “Technological Momentum,” in Merritt Roe Smith and Leo Marx (eds.), Does Technology Drive History? The Dilemma of Technological Determinism (MIT Press, 1994), pp.101-113.
- J. Storrs Hall, “Utility Fog: The Stuff That Dreams are Made of,” in Nanotechnolgy: Molecular Speculations on Global Abundance (MIT Press, 1996), pp. 161-183.

(10) מלחמה, שלום וננו-טכנולוגיה: שלום לנצח של ג'ו הולדמן. קיראו את הספר, ואת:
* Derek Gregory, “From a View to a Kill : Drones and Late Modern War,” Theory, Culture & Society Vol. 28(7- 8) (2011), pp. 188-215.
OR
*Oded Löwenheim, The Politics of the Trail: Reflexive Mountain Biking along the Frontier of Jerusalem (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, forthcoming in 2014), Introduction chapter.
קריאת רשות:
- Charles E. Gannon, “Imag(in)ing Tomorrow’s Wars and Weapons,” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 21(2) (2009), pp. 198-208.
- Chris Hables Gray, “'There Will Be War!': Future War Fantasies and Militaristic Science Fiction in the 1980s,” Science Fiction Studies 21(3) (1994), pp. 315-336.
- Aaron Schwabach, “Kosovo: Virtual War and International Law,” Law and Literature 15(1) 2003, pp. 1-21.

(11) ההפנמה העמוקה של המלחמה: A Taste of Armageddon, Star Trek
• Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, “Cold War Pop Culture and the Image of U.S. Foreign Policy: The Perspective of the Original Star Trek Series,” Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 7, No. 4, Fall 2005, pp. 74–103.
קריאת רשות:
 Iver B. Neumann, “`Grab a Phaser, Ambassador': Diplomacy in Star Trek,” Millennium - Journal of International Studies 30(3) (2001), pp. 603-24.

12. היסטוריה חלופית של היהודים באמריקה. דיון ב-הקנוניה נגד אמריקה של פיליפ רות' ו-איגוד השוטרים היידיים של מייקל שייבון.
• Gavriel Rosenfeld, “Why Do We Ask ‘What If?’ Reflections on the Function of Alternate History,” History and Theory 41(4), 2002, pp. 90-103.
• T. Austin Graham, “On the Possibility of an American Holocaust: Philip Roth's The Plot Against America,” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory 63.3 (2007) 119-149.
• Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, “What Almost Was: The Politics of the Contemporary Alternate History Novel,” American Studies, Volume 50, Number 3/4, Fall/Winter 2009, pp. 63-83, p. 65.
• Sarah Phillips Casteel, “Jews among the Indians: The Fantasy of Indigenization in Mordecai Richler's and Michael Chabon's Northern Narratives,” Contemporary Literature, Volume 50, Number 4, Winter 2009, 775-810.

13. היסטוריה חלופית של מדינת ישראל: יאיר חסדיאל, תל אביב (כנרת, 2013); יואב אבני, הרצל אמר (עם עובד 2011); נאוה סמל, אישראל (ידיעות ספרים, 2005); תיאודור הרצל, תל אביב (בבל, 2011) . עיינו גם באתר "מדינת וויימאר": http://medinatweimar.org/

14. "כתבי יד אינם נשרפים"? קיראו את פרנהייט 451 של ריי ברדבורי.
* Rodney A. Smolla, “The Life and the Mind and a Life of Meaning: Reflections on Fahrenheit 451,” Michigan Law Review 6 (2009), pp. 881-894.
* Angel Galdon Rodriguez, “Starting to Hate the State: The beginning of the character's dissidence in dystopian literature and films,” Altre Modernita 3(2010), pp. 166-173.
- Peter Sisario, “A Study of the Allusions in Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451,” The English Journal, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Feb., 1970), pp. 201-205+212.

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 20 %
Participation in Tutorials 0 %
Project work 70 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 10 %
Other 0 %

Additional information: