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\"An incisive critical work\" that looks at Octavia Butler's writing, the movies of the Matrix and Alien series—and more—through a feminist lens ( Femspec ). Feminist thinkers and writers are increasingly recognizing science fiction's potential to shatter patriarchal and heterosexual norms, while the creators of science fiction are bringing new depth and complexity to the genre by engaging with feminist thewories and politics. This book maps the intersection of feminism and science fiction through close readings of science fiction literature by Octavia E. Butler, Richard Calder, and Melissa Scott and the movies The Matrix and the Alien series. Patricia Melzer analyzes how these authors and films represent debates and concepts in three areas of feminist thought: identity and difference, feminist critiques of science and technology, and the relationship among gender identity, body, and desire, including the new gender politics of queer desires, transgender, and intersexed bodies and identities. She demonstrates that key political elements shape these debates, including global capitalism and exploitative class relations within a growing international system; the impact of computer, industrial, and medical technologies on women's lives and reproductive rights; and posthuman embodiment as expressed through biotechnologies, the body/machine interface, and the commodification of desire. Melzer's investigation makes it clear that feminist writings and readings of science fiction are part of a feminist critique of existing power relations—and that the alien constructions (cyborgs, clones, androids, aliens, and hybrids) that populate postmodern science fiction are as potentially empowering as they are threatening.

Anxieties about embodiment and posthumanism have always found an outlet in the science fiction of the day. In Bodies of Tomorrow , Sherryl Vint argues for a new model of an ethical and embodied posthuman subject through close readings of the works of Gwyneth Jones, Octavia Butler, Iain M. Banks, William Gibson, and other science fiction authors. Vint’s discussion is firmly contextualized by discussions of contemporary technoscience, specifically genetics and information technology, and the implications of this technology for the way we consider human subjectivity. Engaging with theorists such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Anne Balsamo, N. Katherine Hayles, and Douglas Kellner, Bodies of Tomorrow argues for the importance of challenging visions of humanity in the future that overlook our responsibility as embodied beings connected to a material world. If we are to understand the post-human subject, then we must acknowledge our embodied connection to the world around us and the value of our multiple subjective responses to it. Vint’s study thus encourages a move from the common liberal humanist approach to posthuman theory toward what she calls ‘embodied posthumanism.’ This timely work of science fiction criticism will prove fascinating to cultural theorists, philosophers, and literary scholars alike, as well as anyone concerned with the ethics of posthumanism.

Science fiction is at the intersection of numerous fields. It is a literature which draws on popular culture, and which engages in speculation about science, history, and all types of social relations. This volume brings together essays by scholars and practitioners of science fiction, which look at the genre from these different angles. After an introduction to the nature of science fiction, historical chapters trace science fiction from Thomas More to more recent years, including a chapter on film and television. The second section introduces four important critical approaches to science fiction drawing their theoretical inspiration from Marxism, postmodernism, feminism and queer theory. The final and largest section of the book looks at various themes and sub-genres of science fiction. A number of well-known science fiction writers contribute to this volume, including Gwyneth Jones, Ken MacLeod, Brian Stableford Andy Duncan, James Gunn, Joan Slonczewski, and Damien Broderick.

From its beginnings in the works of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne to the virtual worlds of William Gibson's Neuromancer and The Matrix, Science Fiction: A Guide to the Perplexed helps students navigate the often perplexing worlds of a perennially popular genre. Drawing on literature as well as example from film and television, the book explores the different answers that criticism has offered to the vexed question, what is science fiction?' Each chapter of the book includes case studies of key texts, annotated guides to further reading and suggestions for class discussion to help students master the full range of contemporary critical approaches to the field, including the scientific, technological and political contexts in which the genre has flourished. Ranging from an understanding of the genre through the stereotypes of 1930s pulps through more recent claims that we are living in a science fictional moment, this volume will provide a comprehensive overview of this diverse and fascinating genre.

Early science fiction has often been associated almost exclusively with Northern industrialized nations. In this groundbreaking exploration of the science fiction written in Latin America prior to 1920, Rachel Haywood Ferreira argues that science fiction has always been a global genre. She traces how and why the genre quickly reached Latin America and analyzes how writers in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico adapted science fiction to reflect their own realities. Among the texts discussed are one of the first defenses of Darwinism in Latin America, a tale of a time-traveling history book, and a Latin American Frankenstein. Latin American science fiction writers have long been active participants in the sf literary tradition, expanding the limits of the genre and deepening our perception of the role of science and technology in the Latin American imagination. The book includes a chronological bibliography of science fiction published from 1775 to 1920 in all Latin American countries.

In 15 all-new essays, this volume explores how science fiction and fantasy draw on materials from ancient Greece and Rome, ‘displacing’ them from their original settings—in time and space, in points of origins and genre—and encouraging readers to consider similar ‘displacements’ in the modern world. Modern examples from a wide range of media and genres—including Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and the novels of Helen Oyeyemi, the Rocky Horror Picture Show and Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, and the role-playing games Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer 40K—are brought alongside episodes from ancient myth, important moments from history, and more. All together, these multifaceted studies add to our understanding of how science fiction and fantasy form important areas of classical reception, not only transmitting but also transmuting images of antiquity. The volume concludes with an inspiring personal reflection from the New York Times-bestselling author of speculative fiction, Catherynne M. Valente, offering her perspective on the limitless potential of the classical world to resonate with experience today.

The term 'science fiction' has an established common usage, but close examination reveals that writers, fans, editors, scholars, and publishers often use this word in different ways for different reasons. Exploring how science fiction has emerged through competing versions and the struggle to define its limits, this Concise History: provides an accessible and clear overview of the development of the genre traces the separation of sf from a broader fantastic literature and the simultaneous formation of neighbouring genres, such as fantasy and horror shows the relationship between magazine and paperback traditions in sf publishing is organised by theme and presented chronologically uses text boxes throughout to highlight key works in sf traditions including dystopian, apocalyptic and evolutionary fiction includes a short overview and bullet-pointed conclusion for each chapter. Discussing the place of key works and looking forward to the future of the genre, this book is the ideal starting point both for students and all those seeking a better understanding of science fiction.

InSpeculative Blackness, André M. Carrington analyzes the highly racialized genre of speculative fiction-including science fiction, fantasy, and utopian works, along with their fan cultures-to illustrate the relationship between genre conventions in media and the meanings ascribed to blackness in the popular imagination. Carrington's argument about authorship, fandom, and race in a genre that has been both marginalized and celebrated offers a black perspective on iconic works of science fiction. He examines the career of actor Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed the character Uhura in the originalStar Trektelevision series and later became a recruiter for NASA, and the spin-off seriesStar Trek: Deep Space Nine, set on a space station commanded by a black captain. He recovers a pivotal but overlooked moment in 1950s science fiction fandom in which readers and writers of fanzines confronted issues of race by dealing with a fictitious black fan writer and questioning the relevance of race to his ostensible contributions to the 'zines. Carrington mines the productions of Marvel comics and the black-owned comics publisher Milestone Media, particularly the representations of black sexuality in its flagship title,Icon. He also interrogates online fan fiction about black British women inBuffy the Vampire Slayerand the Harry Potter series.Throughout this nuanced analysis, Carrington theorizes the relationship between race and genre in cultural production, revealing new understandings of the significance of blackness in twentieth-century American literature and culture.