A Beijing university is going where no Chinese university has gone before -- into the uncharted field of postgraduate science fiction studies.
Beijing Normal University announced Friday it will recruit postgraduates to major in science fiction next year.
It is the first time a Chinese university has embraced science fiction, a genre literature, into its postgraduate education list.
Sources from the university said science fiction, with its modernist spirit, occupied an important place in world contemporary literature. Prestigious universities in Western countries had had postgraduate courses in the field for a long time.
Beijing Normal University has taken a national lead in the research of science fiction. As early as 1991, the university opened an elective course in science fiction for undergraduates in a bid to enhance student quality in both natural sciences and social sciences.
China's science fiction first gained popularity in the 1980s. Some popular novels emerged at the time, but theoretical research on science fiction lagged behind.
(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2002)
