Since its origins, science fiction has addressed issues in spirituality such as death, transcendence, meaning of life, human condition. Instead of defining science fiction as based upon science, we should better define it as based upon the « problematization » of our world. It construes fictional configurations which trigger readers’ essential astonishment, and impose a sense of wonder. It tackles central problems, be it biological, political or spiritual. Opening to potentially infinite space and time, it can unfold quests on a cosmic scale, and revisit significant religious traditions to question them, or to delineate a space where sublime confronts mystery. The overall argument aims at defining science fiction as a problematological literary genre, which uses narratives and images. This dissertation applies these research orientations to French, American and English Science Fiction from the XIXth century onwards — it refers to a dozen novels and three movies. While it focuses upon this specific body of novels and films, it intends to set up theoretical schemes and to identify works which are landmarks in SF and exemplify this problematological perspective.
