Syllabus (Google Doc)

To be updated: A link to the 'live' syllabus in Google Doc format. The syllabus linked to here is from spring 2025 at Howard University.

Updated description for spring 2026 at BMC. In this course we explore how science fiction (SF), the genre perhaps most characteristic of the modern world, draws on and departs from ancient Greek and Roman literature, philosophy, myth, history, and art: in other words, how SF forms part of ‘classical traditions’ and constitutes a rich site for ‘classical receptions,’ both transmitting and transmuting ancient materials. Beginning with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), evoking antiquity in its subtitle, The Modern Prometheus, we consider a wide range of materials–mainly literature and film–from several theoretical perspectives in the fields of SF studies and Classics. Readings from modern authors including Miller, Jr., Collins, Walton, Carey, and Okorafor; ancient authors including Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylus, Plato, Ovid, and Juvenal; and screenings from directors including Kubrick, Scott, Cronenberg, McCarthy, Garland, and Peele.