Poli Sci Fi: An Introduction to Political Science through Science Fiction allows readers, students, and instructors to explore the multiple worlds of science fiction while gaining a firm grasp of core political science concepts. This carefully composed text is comprised of sixteen brief chapters, each of which takes a prominent science fiction film or television episode and uses it to explore fundamental components of political science. The book is designed to serve as a supplemental text for undergraduate political science courses, especially Introduction to Political Science. The structure and content of the volume is shaped around the organization and coverage of several leading texts in this area, and includes major parts devoted to theory and epistemology, political behavior, institutions, identity, states, and inter-state relations. Its emphasis on science fiction—and particularly on popular movies and television programs—speaks to the popularity of the genre as well as the growing understanding that popular culture can be an extraordinarily successful vehicle for communicating difficult yet foundational concepts, especially to introductory level college students.

Poli Sci Fi: An Introduction to Political Science through Science Fiction allows readers, students, and instructors to explore the multiple worlds of science fiction while gaining a firm grasp of core political science concepts. This carefully composed text is comprised of sixteen brief chapters, each of which takes a prominent science fiction film or television episode and uses it to explore fundamental components of political science. The book is designed to serve as a supplemental text for undergraduate political science courses, especially Introduction to Political Science. The structure and content of the volume is shaped around the organization and coverage of several leading texts in this area, and includes major parts devoted to theory and epistemology, political behavior, institutions, identity, states, and inter-state relations. Its emphasis on science fiction—and particularly on popular movies and television programs—speaks to the popularity of the genre as well as the growing understanding that popular culture can be an extraordinarily successful vehicle for communicating difficult yet foundational concepts, especially to introductory level college students.

As the science fiction writer Frederik Pohl observes in the lead essay, the contributors collectively find science fiction to be either implicitly or explicitly political by its very nature.

Sometimes called the “literature of ideas,” science fiction is a natural medium for normative political philosophy. Science fiction’s focus on technology, space and time travel, non-human lifeforms, and parallel universes cannot help but invoke the perennial questions of political life, including the nature of a just social order and who should rule; freedom, free will, and autonomy; and the advantages and disadvantages of progress. Rather than offering a reading of a work inspired by a particular thinker or tradition, each chapter presents a careful reading of a classic or contemporary work in the genre (a novel, short story, film, or television series) to illustrate and explore the themes and concepts of political philosophy.

Solar Express, the thrilling, new, hard science fiction novel from New York Times bestselling author L. E. Modesitt, Jr. You can't militarize space. This one rule has led to decades of peaceful development of space programs worldwide. However, increasing resource scarcity and a changing climate on Earth's surface is causing some interested parties to militarize, namely India, the North American Union, and the Sinese Federation. The discovery of a strange artifact by Dr. Alayna Wong precipitates a crisis. What appears to be a hitherto undiscovered comet is soon revealed to be an alien structure on a cometary trajectory toward the sun. Now there is a race between countries to see who can study and control the artifact dubbed the "Solar Express" before it perhaps destroys itself. Leading the way for the North American Union is Alayna's friend, Captain Christopher Tavoian, one of the first shuttle pilots to be trained for combat in space. But, as the alien craft gets closer to its destination, it begins to alter the surface of the sun in strange new ways, ways that could lead Alayna to revolutionary discoveries--provided Chris can prevent war from breaking out as he navigates among the escalating tensions between nations. Other Series by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. The Saga of Recluce The Imager Portfolio The Corean Chronicles The Spellsong Cycle The Ghost Books The Ecolitan Matter The Forever Hero Timegod's World Other Books The Green Progression Hammer of Darkness The Parafaith War Adiamante Gravity Dreams The Octagonal Raven Archform: Beauty The Ethos Effect Flash The Eternity Artifact The Elysium Commission Viewpoints Critical Haze Empress of Eternity The One-Eyed Man Solar Express At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

This volume explores the science fiction/world politics intertext. Through detailed analyses of such texts as Blade Runner, Stalker, Star Trek, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the chapters in this volume examine the complex and sometimes contradictory relations between world politics, both as discipline and as practice, and discourses of science fiction. Offering a novel combination of popular culture analysis with major theoretical and empirical issues concerning world politics, Science Fiction and World Politics provides insights into the discursive constitution of both science fiction and world politics while highlighting the occasional challenges that the science fiction/world politics intertext launches at our common sense.

Novel collection of essays addressing contemporary trends in political science, covering a broad array of methodological and substantive topics.