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"Space and time Fiction."
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Zero-Oneness of the World: Geometries of Space and Time Between Subtext and Surface – Re-coding the Structures of Life
The proposal that the world is made of sequences of zeros and ones, overtly expressed in DeLillo’s early novel Ratner’s Star (1976), marks the first time in DeLillo’s fiction that he introduces the idea that the (creation of) reality is of mathematical nature. The “zero-oneness” of the world thirty odd years later, although it still may be an uncommon thought in literature, is ubiquitous in the visual arts, in film and in architecture, and binary code has become the basis of our digitally enhanced reality. Looking at DeLillo’s Millennial novels, this paper seeks to explore models of the space-time continuum of the fictional reality that DeLillo constructs; focusing on Ratner’s Star as a literary exploration of a three-dimensional space and on the novel Body Artist as an investigation of the fourth dimension, pondering time, we hope to register the “sum total of one’s data” (WN) as the only palpable texture of DeLillo’s reality.
Journal Article
In my own backyard
A young child looks out a bedroom window seeing the backyard as it would have looked if she had seen it during various historical and geological periods.
Book
Astrofuturism
Astrofuturism: Science, Race, and Visions of Utopia in Spaceis the first full-scale analysis of an aesthetic, scientific, and political movement that sought the amelioration of racial difference and social antagonisms through the conquest of space. Drawing on the popular science writing and science fiction of an eclectic group of scientists, engineers, and popular writers, De Witt Douglas Kilgore investigates how the American tradition of technological utopianism responded to the political upheavals of the twentieth century. Founded in the imperial politics and utopian schemes of the nineteenth century, astrofuturism envisions outer space as an endless frontier that offers solutions to the economic and political problems that dominate the modern world. Its advocates use the conventions of technological and scientific conquest to consolidate or challenge the racial and gender hierarchies codified in narratives of exploration. Because the icon of space carries both the imperatives of an imperial past and the democratic hopes of its erstwhile subjects, its study exposes the ideals and contradictions endemic to American culture. Kilgore argues that in the decades following the Second World War the subject of race became the most potent signifier of political crisis for the predominantly white and male ranks of astrofuturism. In response to criticism inspired by the civil rights movement and the new left, astrofuturists imagined space frontiers that could extend the reach of the human species and heal its historical wounds. Their work both replicated dominant social presuppositions and supplied the resources necessary for the critical utopian projects that emerged from the antiracist, socialist, and feminist movements of the twentieth century. This survey of diverse bodies of literature conveys the dramatic and creative syntheses that astrofuturism envisions between people and machines, social imperatives and political hope, physical knowledge and technological power. Bringing American studies, utopian literature, popular conceptions of race and gender, and the cultural study of science and technology into dialogue, Astrofuturism will provide scholars of American culture, fans of science fiction, and readers of science writing with fresh perspectives on both canonical and cutting-edge astrofuturist visions.
eBook
Omega
As Noah skips from one dimension to another seeking revenge for the death of his sister, he encounters Ash, but falling for her would put them both at risk of a conspiracy surrounding the mysterious project Omega.
Book
African Renaissance, Afrotopia, Afropolitanism, and Afrofuturism: Comparing Conceptual Properties of Four African Futures
Since the turn of the millennium, the African continent has been extremely active in producing African futures. These are part of the multiple non-western modernities existing simultaneously; modernities of revolution, reform, or restitution. This contribution adds to the debate by analysing four recent concepts along four axes: the representation of time and space, the initiators behind those four concepts, and the concepts’ social inclusiveness. The paper first discusses the idea of the “African Renaissance,” which has been proposed as official government policy in South Africa and has given shape to Pan-African political bodies. Second, “Afrotopia” is a term coined by the Senegalese economist Felwine Sarr that emphasises identity politics. Third, “Afropolitanism” proposes an “African-style” modernity as seen in the works of Achille Mbembe and Sarah Nuttall and is also likened to John and Jean Comaroff's writings on “Afromodernity.” Finally, “Afrofuturism” emerged in relation to science fiction literature and digital visual arts and uses the virtual sphere to address an international audience.
Journal Article
Lucy and the rocket dog
Budding scientist Lucy builds a rocket ship and accidentally sends her beloved dog, Laika, into space.
Book
‘What it feels like to be an other’: imaginations of displacement in contemporary speculative fiction
This essay explores how contemporary speculative fiction can offer new ways of imagining the refugee experience. Looking at Omar El Akkad’s American War (2017) and Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West (2017), it argues that the cognitive estrangement effect, or the way in which each text encourages the reader to distance themselves from reality, can help the reader build a bridge between the world of the refugee and that of the reader. Central to the discussion will be the genre’s use of the term novum, with reference to concepts of time and space. Not only do these elements contribute to achieving cognitive estrangement, they also have a fundamental role to play in the lives of refugees. Drawing a parallel between the novum as speculative fiction’s most important trope and the role of the real novum in refugee lives shows how the genre reflects the disruptive changes brought about by the displacement of refugee populations. In addition, the flexible use of time in each text has proven to be a useful tool for helping the reader imagine how being a refugee impacts on one’s sense of time and, subsequently, one’s agency—an element which will be explored through an analysis of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus, as well as insights from David Hoy’s reading of Martin Heidegger’s prioritisation of the future. As speculative fiction’s main task is to imagine alternative realities, a third central element of the discussion will be ways in which the genre utilises space. Ultimately, it is argued that refugee narratives do not have to be strictly realist, as fantastical elements help readers to transcend the personal imagination— and sometimes that is what is needed to envisage the unthinkable.
Journal Article
The Time Fetch
When the Time Fetch's foragers gobble up too much time, causing the fabric of the universe to unravel and blur the boundaries between worlds and dimensions, eighth-grade loner Edward and his classmates must band together to save the day.
Book
The Temporal Imagination of Indigenous Futurisms
If the very act of speaking back against colonial tropes has itself become an aspect of mainstream SF that cynically distorts the force and significance of the concept of decolonization while simultaneously serving as a way to avoid engaging with SF's own historical connection to colonialism, then how may we answer the crucial question that, as insists, artists and scholars must continue to ask themselves and answer in new ways: \"what makes [Indigenous Futurisms] different from more mainstream science fiction?\" This essay seeks to make a contribution to what must necessarily be a series of engagements with and answers to this question that together help us not just understand what indigenous futurisms are but also what they do. It is the latter relation to which this essay accords particular significance. Examining the temporality of IF, for instance, both on an epistemological and on a formal level, allows us not only to draw one important distinction between IF and what we may understand as settler futurism, but we are also able to catch one glimpse of the striking artistic, political, and social possibility of IF in our time.
Journal Article