The History and Science of Science Fiction

You can’t have science fiction without science and not so long ago what passed for science was something called natural philosophy. When did it become science as we know it and how did the fictional exploration of scientific things become science fiction? 

In this seminar, we explore the gathering power of scientia from the Renaissance to the scientific revolution alongside proto-science fictions inspired by new technologies for exploring the globe and observing the heavens and the microscopic world. Our journey will accelerate as we enter the 19th century where we’ll learn about the young woman who added a new dimension to Gothic romance with her tale of a modern Prometheus and her polymath contemporary, another woman to whom the term scientist was first applied. We continue with Victorian scientific romances and the first use of the terms science fiction and robot in the 1920s and on to the present day as we consider the genre in its historical and social context. We will analyze the ways that different authors have used scientific ideas and confronted contemporary dilemmas, and deployed themes relating to the individual in society, technology and progress and legacies of conquest and colonizing.

Michael Budd, Ph.D., is the author of “The Sculpture Machine: Physical Culture and Body Politics in the Age of Empire” (Macmillan UK/ NYU Press 1997). He has written for scholarly and popular venues, including the International Journal of Sport History, and Afterimage. Michael’s current research focuses on global consumer identity and the national body in relation to technology, memory, violence and authoritarian ideas. He earned his B.S. degree from the University of Oregon and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Modern European history from Rutgers University. He is a professor in Salve Regina University’s history department and the humanities Ph.D. program.