Critical Social Inquiry 0242 - Alien/Freak/Monster: Race, Sex, and Disability In Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy

Alien/Freak/Monster

Fall
2025
1
4.00
Professor Loza

01:00PM-02:20PM TU;01:00PM-02:20PM TH

Hampshire College
340705
Emily Dickinson Hall 2;Emily Dickinson Hall 2
slHA@hampshire.edu
This course examines questions of race, gender/sexuality, and disability in science fiction, horror, and fantasy film and television. It investigates how and why people in different social positions have been constructed as foreign, freakish, or monstrous. In addition to exploring the relationship between sex/gender norms and hierarchies based on race/species or class/caste, we will also consider the following questions: Does the figure of the alien/freak/monster reconfigure the relationship between bodies, technology, and the division of labor? How do such figures simultaneously buttress and transgress the boundary between human and non-human, normal and abnormal, Self and Other? How does society use the grotesque body of the alien/freak/monster to police the liminal limits of sexuality, gender, and ethnicity? How does The Other come to embody Pure Evil? Finally, what are the consequences of living as an alien/freak/monster for specific groups and individuals? Keywords:Ethnic Studies, Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, Film and Media Studies, Disability Studies

In/Justice Students should expect to spend 10 hours weekly on work and preparation outside of class time

Permission is required for interchange registration during the add/drop period only.