Aliens and Empire Culture
ENG-300D-01
Binghamton University
- Semester
- Summer 2026
- Instructor
- Michael D Williamson
- Start Date
- 05-26-2026
- Total Credits
- 4
- Call to Register
- 607-777-6088
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You will learn the same curriculum as our on-campus students
This course reads extraterrestrials as having something profound to say about imperialism. Not always, but often, aliens embody the fear of (reverse) colonization. They frequently signal an anxiety, too, about the intervention of the imperial power abroad, usually in foreign wars and resource extraction. Extraterrestrials, in this way, can be interpreted either as scary or sympathetic but they more often than not occupy a zone of ambiguity. Imperialism, as a system of extraction and expansion, repeatedly stages new colonial encounters. The keywords this course examines, then, are colonization and accumulation, as well as the friend/enemy distinction. The literary texts we will read are H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Filmic texts include Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day (1996) and M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs (2002), among others.
Course Area: English & Literature
Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
Dates: 05-26-2026 - 06-29-2026
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- Instructor: Michael D Williamson
- Local Course ID: 26SU_BIN_ENG300D_01
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