Anthropological reading of science fiction

Abstract

The paper gives an overview of the prevalence of the analysis of science fiction literature and science fiction in other segments of popular culture in Serbian anthropology. This overview is preceded by a consideration of science fiction as a genre while keeping in mind the fluidity of the genre and the interweaving of subgenres as well as the transformations which science fiction is undergoing in certain media (books, films, TV shows and video games). In Serbian anthropology research on science fiction is more prevalent than the study of other phenomena, as the number of anthropologists whose work is represented in the paper is fairly large compared to the size of the anthropological community as a whole. The causes for this can primarily be found in a collective focus on questions such as: who are we and who the others are, what the basis of creating and building identity is or what the role of context in recognition of species is. Anthropology gives answers to these questions through the interpretation, explanation and understanding of the world around us, while science fiction does it through the literary considerations of these same questions.