Science Fiction as a Mode

My preference is to understand science fiction as a cultural form that offers an “everyday” language for thinking about and responding to daily life in the twenty-first century…The genre asks questions about the impact of science and technology on human experience, values, and ways of living, and even when it explores these issues through scenarios that science tells us are impossible, the genre uses such symbols to comment upon otherwise unnoticed aspects of our ordinary world.

—Sherryl Vint, Science Fiction

Science fiction gets at the essence of humanist inquiry. As a mode, it is therefore uniquely positioned to bridge disciplines.

Science fiction invites us to dwell in realities that feature radically different societies, communication systems, natural laws, and technology – or even a reality that could be our own were it not for a small difference – a slightly altered chemical or a blip in space-time – that transforms everything.

The mental work of stretching invention x toward conceivable outcomes, gauging the influence of y on a community, or encountering a world in which z has become mundane – where each variable stands for a novum – has the capacity to instill empathy and compassion: the ultimate humanist destination. By interfacing with science fiction, students in any major can learn to more thoroughly comprehend the world, themselves, and each other.