"Science fiction is fundamentally a critical art": teaching science fiction literature to educate people to counter

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show that science fiction, if approached with an appropriate conceptual system, is a literature that deserves to be taught at secondary level, particularly at upper secondary level. To do this, we first propose to define the notions at the heart of science fiction poetics: narrative conjecture will be addressed, followed by the relationships it weaves with Ricœurian metaphor. Secondly, the reflexive consequences of these same notions will be explored, highlighting some of the pedagogical advantages of this literary genre: a critical genre which, through its ability to question the techno-capitalist world by focusing on the transformations of the human condition brought about by that same world, enables teachers to engage in an original dialogue with their students, so that the latter are in a position to reflect - through narrative - on the problems they encounter in their daily lives and to counter the dehumanising ideologies to which they are necessarily subjected.