Fantasy/SciFi university course - Free: Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*, *good karma*]

The University of Michigan is offering a free course on Fantasy and Science Fiction!

Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World

Starts July 23rd
About the Course

Fantasy is a key term both in psychology and in the art and artifice of humanity. The things we make, including our stories, reflect, serve, and often shape our needs and desires. We see this everywhere from fairy tale to kiddie lit to myth; from "Cinderella" to Alice in Wonderland to Superman; from building a fort as a child to building ideal, planned cities as whole societies. Fantasy in ways both entertaining and practical serves our persistent needs and desires and illuminates the human mind. Fantasy expresses itself in many ways, from the comfort we feel in the godlike powers of a fairy godmother to the seductive unease we feel confronting Dracula. From a practical viewpoint, of all the fictional forms that fantasy takes, science fiction, from Frankenstein to Avatar, is the most important in our modern world because it is the only kind that explicitly recognizes the profound ways in which science and technology, those key products of the human mind, shape not only our world but our very hopes and fears. This course will explore Fantasy in general and Science Fiction in specific both as art and as insights into ourselves and our world.

[J.D.]

My son is taking this through Coursera as part of his homeschooling this semester, and he's really enjoying it.

If you aren't looking for the certificate, and you just want to audit the class, have access to the lectures, and participate in the discussions, you can still join. They are reading some excellent books.