Science Fiction and the Critique of Modernity from the Periphery PDF Download

Author: Oscar González Romero
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 586

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Author: Carl Freedman
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819574546
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book of the Year. This innovative cultural critique offers valuable insights into science fiction, thus enlarging our understanding of critical theory. Carl Freedman traces the fundamental and mostly unexamined relationships between the discourses of science fiction and critical theory, arguing that science fiction is (or ought to be) a privileged genre for critical theory. He asserts that it is no accident that the upsurge of academic interest in science fiction since the 1970s coincides with the heyday of literary theory, and that likewise science fiction is one of the most theoretically informed areas of the literary profession. Extended readings of novels by five of the most important modern science fiction authors illustrate the affinity between science fiction and critical theory, in each case concentrating on one major novel that resonates with concerns proper to critical theory. Freedman's five readings are: Solaris: Stanislaw Lem and the Structure of Cognition; The Dispossessed: Ursula LeGuin and the Ambiguities of Utopia; The Two of Them: Joanna Russ and the Violence of Gender; Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand: Samuel Delany and the Dialectics of Difference; The Man in the High Castle: Philip K. Dick and the Construction of Realities.

Author: Mark Bould
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040042953
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 537

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The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction provides an overview of the study of science fiction across multiple academic fields. It offers a new conceptualisation of the field today, marking the significant changes that have taken place in sf studies over the past 15 years. Building on the pioneering research in the first edition, the collection reorganises historical coverage of the genre to emphasise new geographical areas of cultural production and the growing importance of media beyond print. It also updates and expands the range of frameworks that are relevant to the study of science fiction. The periodisation has been reframed to include new chapters focusing on science fiction produced outside the Anglophone context, including South Asian, Latin American, Chinese and African diasporic science fiction. The contributors use both well- established critical and theoretical approaches and embrace a range of new ones, including biopolitics, climate crisis, critical ethnic studies, disability studies, energy humanities, game studies, medical humanities, new materialisms and sonic studies. This book is an invaluable resource for students and established scholars seeking to understand the vast range of engagements with science fiction in scholarship today.

Author: Joanna Page
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472053108
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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This book examines an unprecedented range of science fiction texts-including literature, cinema, theater, and comics-produced in Argentina from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. These works address themes common to the genre across the industrialized world, including techno-authoritarianism, new modes of posthuman subjectivity, and apocalyptic visions of environmental catastrophe. At the same time, Argentine science fiction is fully grounded in the social and political life of the nation. The texts discussed here explore the impact of an uneven modernization, mass migration, dictatorships, crises in national identity, the rise and fall of the Left, the question of Argentina's indigenous heritage, the impact of neoliberalism, and the most recent economic crisis of 2001. Argentine science fiction is also highly reflexive, debating within its pages the role of science fiction and fantasy in the society of its day, and the nature of the text in a world of advancing technology. This book makes important contributions to our understanding of science fiction as a genre, as well as to materialist theories of cultural texts. It will also interest students and scholars researching the culture, history, and politics of Argentina and Latin America. Book jacket.

Author: Reginald Bretnor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Essays by John W. Campbell, Jr., Anthony Boucher, Don Fabun, Fletcher Pratt, Rosalie Moore, L. Sprague de Camp, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip Wylie, Gerald Heard, and Reginald Bretnor. The original 1953 edition was the first serious discussion of modern science fiction as literature. The San Francisco Chronicle said: "The book is very likely to recruit a whole host of new readers.... A freely argued, objective, highly individualistic study by ten writers of the origins, advances and future prospects of science fiction as a spontaneous living literature." The essays are grouped in three sections: "Science Fiction Today," "Science Fiction as Literature," and "Science Fiction, Science, and Modern Man." This classic symposium is a fit companion to Mr. Bretnor's later books Science Fiction, Today and Tomorrow and The Craft of Science Fiction. This new edition adds a preface by the editor, a chapter of notes and corrections, and a complete index. Table of Contents Retrospect and Prospect by Reginald Bretnor Preface to the First Edition by Reginald Bretnor Science Fiction Today The Place of Science Fiction by John W. Campbell, Jr. The Publishing of Science Fiction by Anthony Boucher Science Fiction in Motion Pictures, Radio, and Television by Don Fabun Science Fiction as Literature A Critique of Science Fiction by Fletcher Pratt Science Fiction and the Main Stream by Ray Bradbury Imaginative Fiction and Creative Imagination by L. Sprague de Camp Science Fiction, Science, and Modern Man Social Science Fiction by Isaac Asimov Science Fiction: Preparation for the Age of Space by Arthur C. Clarke Science Fiction and Sanity in an Age of Crisis by Philip Wylie Science Fiction, Morals, and Religion by Gerald Heard The Future of Science Fiction by Reginald Bretnor Supplement Notes and Corrections Also note that some copies of the hardback edition are still available direct from the publisher.

Author: James E. Gunn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Veronica Hollinger
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812218046
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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"The savvy critical essays in this provocative collection investigate the interface between science fiction and postmodern culture. . . . Highly recommended for readers at all levels."—Choice

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 618

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Author: Judith Grant
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 179363064X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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In a world in which political opportunity and liberation seem far away, the genre of science fiction grows in cultural importance and popularity. The contributors to this collection are political and social theorists from a range of disciplines who use science fiction as inspiration for new theories and examples of speculative politics. In dystopian governments, they find locations and forms of resistance. Representations of Political Resistance and Emancipation in Science Fiction explores a range of political and social theoretical concerns for the twenty-first century. Contributors analyze themes of post-humanism, resistance, agency, political community making, and ethics and politics during the Anthropocene.

Author: William Gillard
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476683336
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Speculative modernists--that is, British and American writers of science fiction, fantasy and horror during the late 19th and early 20th centuries--successfully grappled with the same forces that would drive their better-known literary counterparts to existential despair. Building on the ideas of the 19th-century Gothic and utopian movements, these speculative writers anticipated literary Modernism and blazed alternative literary trails in science, religion, ecology and sociology. Such authors as H.G. Wells and H.P. Lovecraft gained widespread recognition--budding from them, other speculative authors published fascinating tales of individuals trapped in dystopias, of anti-society attitudes, post-apocalyptic worlds and the rapidly expanding knowledge of the limitless universe. This book documents the Gothic and utopian roots of speculative fiction and explores how these authors played a crucial role in shaping the culture of the new century with their darker, more evolved themes.