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This paper presents the results of a pilot interview study investigating the leisure reading habits of 20 practising AI researchers based in the United Kingdom. The interview analysis yields six areas in which literature plays a role in the field of AI: research focus, career choice, community formation, science communication, ethical thinking, and modelling of sociotechnical futures. These categories are proposed as the basis of a systematic taxonomy of the role of literature in AI research, evidencing literature's significance in AI laboratory and professional cultures. The paper presents the results of this preliminary investigation in combination with a synthesis of existing evidence in each category of influence. The aim of this hybrid approach is to cohere research and evidence in this relatively new area of study, and to present new findings contextually, in order to provide the foundations for further qualitative and quantitative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British writer John Wyndham (1903–1969) explored societal effects of surprising or mystical events. A paradigmatic example is The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), which portrays identical-looking children born without sexual intercourse. I propose a reading strategy that focuses on the fictional spatial order and analyses how the construction of the children's otherness interferes with the village's demarcation. Furthermore, I interpret the mysterious pregnancies as a reference to basic embryo research in the 1950s – cloning. Finally, I scrutinize Wyndham's negotiation of utilitarianism throughout the novel and his critique of truly utilitarian decisions that are based on constructions of Otherness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Short film is where innovative storytelling is born", the website shortoftheweek.com, a curated short film website, boldly and proudly declares. Short films often lead a Cinderella existence but engaging with them can be immensely rewarding and, due to their length, they can be ideal conversation partners in the religious studies and sociology classroom. The speculative fiction short film, the science fiction short film, and the documentary short film are particularly able to document, address, visualize -- and thus render visible -- structures and hierarchies of power, financial and economic interests, gender, or resource distribution, and the fears and anxieties about what it means to be human. This contribution demonstrates that short films, in particular science fiction short films, can act as conversation partners in the religious studies and sociology classroom, even if the student-audience might not be particularly avid science fiction film fans. I make reference to three short films, Rise (David Karlak, US 2016, 5'), Code 8 (Jeff Chan, US/CA 2016, 10'), and Black Sheep (Ed Perkins, UK 2018, 26'), and provide a more in-depth discussion of the use of Rise in the classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]