From the turn of the last century with Jules Vernes, to more contemporary authors (Vonarburg) this module will analyse why it is that this literary genre is often considered as a subculture. From the discoveries of new worlds to the confrontation with new technologies we will see how this genre expresses the anguishes and hopes specific to our time. As such we will see how science fiction is dealing with political issues where questions of power, ecology and science, among others, are central. By calling into question the boundaries between cultures, times, genres and species, science fiction deals with philosophical questions linked to the ways our identities are build, sometime destroyed or reformulated within the margins of a future post-industrial world