Science fiction(s): from neurons to novae

It is scientifically proven that readers have a tendency to assume that science fiction does not require serious, scholarly attention. This is called the 'genre effect'. Yet science fiction is a speculative genre that consistently asks profound questions about ethics, morality, the future, being, time, space, minds and more. By extrapolating the thorny issues of contemporary society into estranging story worlds, science fiction permits the storyteller to question progress, biases, perceptions – the very foundations of our understanding of reality. Far from being a literary ghetto, sci-fi is a genre of experimentation, speculation and above all, sublime wonder.

In these lectures, two fairly contemporary science fiction novels are paired according to the themes of Alternative Histories, Bodies, Space and Minds. Participants may sign up for as many of these subsequent lectures as they wish, but will ideally also follow the introduction in order to have a theoretical framework from which to interrogate the texts. It is only necessary to read one of the two books for each lecture, as long as you don’t mind being hit with spoilers. The lectures themselves will be in English, but participants are welcome to read in translations.

Alternative histories | 22 October 2025

Alternative histories change at least one variable from our accepted chronology and investigate how the shape of history would be altered. The lecture focuses on questions of inevitability, consequences and historiography.

• The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (1962)






• In this alternative history, set in 1962, the Allies lost WWII. Adding to the layers of interest, the protagonist is writing their own alternative history in which the Allies have won the war.







• Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator’s Revolution by R.F. Kuang (2023)






• Set in Victorian Oxford, this book revisits the Opium Wars with an intriguing linguistic conceit of where things go when they are lost in translation.

Bodies | 19 November 2025

The human body itself is a mystery, and science fiction often explores the ways in which our corporeal existence is weird, threatened or even malleable. This lecture focuses on medical science fiction and particularly how non-Western or marginalised people have experienced medicine’s push for bodily progress.

• The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh (1995)






• Genetics, cloning, malaria and the transmigration of souls – Ghosh combines all of these themes in his challenge to Western scientific discourse.







• Lakewood by Megan Giddings (2020)






• Black bodies and science have a very troubling past – Lakewood makes us pause and consider where we are today and where we are heading.

Space | 10 December 2025

Space exploration has long been a fascination of science fiction – the final frontier left for humankind to explore. And yet, fictions about space are often deeply reflective about the state of affairs on the planet Earth. This lecture focuses on how we venture into space to find our way home.

• Goldilocks by L. R. (Laura) Lam (2000)






• ‘The Future is Female’ might be the motto of this novel about an all-female mission to escape a dystopian Earth. They only need to steal a spacecraft to get there…







• Orbital by Samantha Harvey (2023)






• Introspective, poetic, meditative… this short book follows a team of astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station for 24 hours.

The mind | 14 January 2025

The workings of the mind might be as vast a realm of exploration as outer space. How do we perceive reality, can our experience of reality be improved, where does consciousness lie and what happens to our memories? This lecture focuses on the interaction between our internal and external worlds.

• More Perfect by Temi Oh (2023)






• Can a neurological network offer us Utopia? Can humanity escape depression, loneliness and maybe even become immortal? Or are the government’s Panopticon promises pie in the sky?







• Counterweight by Djuna (2023)






• R. F. Kennedy isn’t the only one with a Worm in his brain. In this novel we are searching for memory fragments in space junk and sifting through layers of augmented reality.