Imagining Other Worlds: Teaching Religious Studies and Ethics Through Science Fiction

Science fiction is often used in the classroom as an accessible form of popular culture that can offer examples that resonate with students. In this roundtable session, however, panelists argue that science fiction’s pedagogical value for teaching religious studies and ethics goes much deeper than this. By its very nature, science fiction demands we imagine worlds outside of our own, and in so doing helps us to question what we have taken for granted about human society. During this roundtable, eight scholars of religion will discuss their experience designing and teaching courses that explicitly use science fiction to reflect, form, and challenge students’ moral imaginations and the religious sensibilities of the cultures that produce them.