丁香园AV

by Neha Nandakumar

When you walk into Holly Andersen鈥檚 office, the first thing you鈥檒l notice is the most colorful bookshelf you鈥檝e ever seen in a philosophy department. Her personal library is stacked with books that deal with all sorts of philosophical topics: language, personal identity, and the nature of thought, to name a few. These, however, are not philosophical treatises, but science fiction books.

In Fall 2023, Holly taught Philosophy and Science Fiction, a new course offered by the Department of Philosophy. Often, such courses are offered to students at the introductory level, with the aim of getting them interested in philosophy through science fiction. Holly points out that if students continue to do philosophy because they got interested in it through science fiction, they would be disappointed to find that the rest of their philosophy classes aren鈥檛 like that introductory one. Her goal, instead, was to turn to students who are graduating and heading out into the world to help them figure out ways to apply their philosophical reading and writing skills outside an academic context.

Why Science Fiction and Philosophy?

鈥淚 think a lot of book length science fiction really just is a way of making a philosophical argument. I think a lot of it is: Here鈥檚 a really well worked out thought experiment in which I make a certain kind of case for, say, a view of aliens or memory devices or personal identity.鈥�

There鈥檚 a way of doing analytical philosophy in which an essay is written as a series of premises followed by a conclusion. However, Holly says, a lot of philosophy essays don鈥檛 actually look like that. Instead, they are often making the case for something, which requires a clear understanding of how the argument trajectory hangs together. This is just another way of talking about world-building. One of the things discussed in the class was the ways in which a world can be so internally consistent that a reader could imagine what would happen if things were a bit different. This is much like putting yourself in the shoes of a philosopher to imagine how they would respond to a possible objection. So, working with science fiction is a lot closer to doing philosophy than one might initially think.

In fact, she found that the science fiction was exploring certain issues with greater sophistication than the relevant philosophical literature. So, instead of pairing a science fiction text with a philosophy one, the course readings were mainly science fiction books.

Course Structure

Held twice a week, the Wednesday class was a short lecture, followed by a 2-hour discussion session on Friday. For the discussion sessions, students brought in questions and ideas to dig deeper into the text and look into perspectives they hadn鈥檛 fully understood. The course, overall, had three parts. During the first three weeks, they read A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. This Hugo-award winner is the first book in a duology that looks at issues related to language, translation, colonization and otherness. The second section of the course focused on the sociality of science fiction. Here, they looked at fandoms and the social aspects of appreciating science fiction. Holly mentions that this is interesting from a philosophical perspective because philosophy, too, is not something one does alone in their room. You need other people to help you do it better. During this section, they read A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, and watched Everything Everywhere All at Once in the Images Theater. In the final section, students were split into five groups, with every group reading and discussing one book each. The course wrapped up with an in-class discussion with New York Times bestselling author of Iron Widow, Xiran Jay Zhao.

Assignments

For the first paper, Holly wanted students to do something different from a regular philosophy paper. When she noticed that many of the submissions still resembled philosophy essays, she changed the prompt for the second assignment. For this assignment, there were only two rules. One, it had to be about the sociality of science fiction. Two, it could not be a philosophy paper. 鈥淎nd so鈥�, Holly said, 鈥渢hey came up with the most amazing things!鈥� One of the students made a Reddit discussion thread on when an author鈥檚 social media post about a character counts as changing the canon. For instance, does it make a difference whether the author posted while the book was being released or ten years later? Some of the students made fan art that are proudly hung up in Holly鈥檚 office. Other submissions included fanfiction, a PowerPoint show, and a project about cosplay. For the final assignment, students were free to submit in any format they liked. This, Holly recalls, was a stack of submissions she was thoroughly excited to grade. 鈥淚 told them that they had to write something equivalent to a 1500-word paper and somebody brings me 30 pages of incredibly awesome fanfiction that really develops an idea, and I鈥檓 like鈥� how do I grade this? I don鈥檛 know how to grade this! So, it was the best grading experience I have ever had because I felt so fortunate in getting to read and watch all the stuff they had brought. It was the best grading I have ever, ever done.鈥�

Reflecting on the Course

What was it about the course that brought out such creativity from its students? Holly remarks that, in addition to the inspiration from the phenomenal science fiction works they were reading, the students were probably just waiting for the chance. At this stage of their career, having developed philosophical abilities through extensive training, they were ready for a course like this.

Philosophy and Science Fiction was offered for the first time last year and Holly hopes that the course is offered regularly so that students who don鈥檛 go on in professional philosophy can learn to use the skills they have developed. As students go out into the world, there are many things they鈥檒l need to learn鈥� how to apply for jobs, for instance. But through a course like this, she points out, philosophy can teach them how to continue to have a life that鈥檚 worth living, with sci fi and fandom!

If you鈥檙e interested, keep an eye out for the course in Spring 2025, when it will be offered again, this time incorporating the Vancouver FanExpo into the sociality section in February!

Book Recommendations!

And if you鈥檙e looking for more science fiction books, in addition to the ones from the course, here are Holly鈥檚 recommendations:

1. Babel by R. F. Kuang
2. Ancillary Justice and other books in this series by Ann Leckie
3. Children of Time and other books in this series by Adrian Tchaikovsky
4. The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
5. Rosewater by Tade Thompson
6. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
7. Vita Nostra by Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko