Xenoanthropology

This course will focus both on a thoughtful exploration of a possible first contact with alien life and use the opportunity to hold up a mirror to ourselves and think about the meaning of being human. To do this, you will read first contact stories as well as scholarly anthropological literature that considers first contact and understanding the other. In particular, reading will include science fiction first contact stories written by anthropologists. Anthropology and science fiction both can be used as mirrors that help us understand ourselves. The practice of anthropology can make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. By grappling with the other, we may learn more about ourselves. Science fiction plays a similar role and a speculative reality can expose truths about our everyday existence.