English 90ff. Indigenous Sci Fi, Horror, Fantasy, and Futurisms

Instructor: Christopher Pexa
Spring 2027
TBD | Location: TBD
Spring 2026
Monday, 3:00-5:00pm | Location: TBD
Enrollment: Limited to 15 students

This course will examine contemporary writings by Native American and Indigenous authors across the genres of sci fi, horror, and fantasy, with the aim of thinking about Native American and Indigenous futures (and futurisms) more broadly, and also in ways that may exceed genre altogether. In other words, our investigation will be organized according to conventional sci fi genres of slipstream, alien contact, and apocalypse, but also to non-genre expressions of Indigenous futurity. By juxtaposing literary works from authors writing both within the boundaries of the United States and beyond, we will be able to make connections between them that highlight both their common sovereignty struggles and shared utopian visions, but also keeps in view the many meaningful differences in how Native American and Indigenous aesthetic productions perform the work of future-making.

This course satisfies the “1900-Present Guided Elective" requirement for English concentrators and Secondary Field students.