First published in 1979. This volume presents Science Fiction as a coherent system, not as a collection of facts or random sequence of individual voices. The contributors are concerned with less with surveying the bare facts of the genre than with interpretating their significance. They attempt to establish the common properties of Science Fiction writing whether in the treatment of a theme or in SF of a given period or nationality.
Teaching Science Fiction is the first text in thirty years to explore the pedagogic potential of that most intellectually stimulating and provocative form of popular literature: science fiction. Innovative and academically lively, it offers valuable insights into how SF can be taught historically, culturally and practically at university level.
This book, first published in 1980, examines issues such as the definition of the genre, its function as social criticism and as an embodiment and critique of the scientific outlook. In order to work towards a more comprehensive view of the genre, the author analyses science fiction by turns as a mode of popular literature, as a socially responsible and quasi-realistic form of writing, and as a home for a fantastic and parodic use of language. How much are ‘future histories’, to name but one type of SF, the answer to a frustration of the epic impulse? These questions and more are closely examined in this lively and informative book.
Drawn from the Science Fiction Research Association conference held in Lawrence, Kansas, in 2008, the essays in this volume address intersections among the reading, writing, and teaching of science fiction. Part 1 studies the teaching of SF, placing analytical and pedagogical research next to each other to reveal how SF can be both an object of study as well as a teaching tool for other disciplines. Part 2 examines SF as a genre of mediation between the sciences and the humanities, using close readings and analyses of the literary-scientific nexus. Part 3 examines SF in the media, using specific television programs, graphic novels, and films as examples of how SF successfully transcends the medium of transmission. Finally, Part 4 features close readings of SF texts by women, including Joanna Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Octavia E. Butler.
This book, first published in 1980, analyses science fiction as a mode of literature, examines the definition of the genre, its function as social criticism and as an embodiment and critique of the scientific outlook.
Including more than 30 essential works of science fiction criticism in a single volume, this is a comprehensive introduction to the study of this enduringly popular genre. Science Fiction Criticism: An Anthology of Essential Writings covers such topics as: ·Definitions and boundaries of the genre ·The many forms of science fiction, from time travel to 'inner space' ·Ideology and identity: from utopian fantasy to feminist, queer and environmental readings ·The non-human: androids, aliens, cyborgs and animals ·Race and the legacy of colonialism The volume also features annotated guides to further reading on these topics. Includes writings by: Marc Angenot, J.G. Ballard, Damien Broderick, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Samuel R. Delany, Philip K. Dick, Grace Dillon, Kodwo Eshun, Carl Freedman, Allison de Fren, Hugo Gernsback, Donna Haraway, N. Katherine Hayles, Robert A. Heinlein, Nalo Hopkinson, Veronica Hollinger, Fredric Jameson, Gwyneth Jones, Rob Latham, Roger Luckhurst, Judith Merril, John B. Michel, Wendy Pearson, John Rieder, Lysa Rivera, Joanna Russ, Mary Shelley, Stephen Hong Sohn, Susan Sontag, Bruce Sterling, Darko Suvin, Vernor Vinge, Sherryl Vint, H.G. Wells, David Wittenberg and Lisa Yaszek
On the 200th anniversary of the first edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Transmedia Creatures presents studies of Frankenstein by international scholars from converging disciplines such as humanities, musicology, film studies, television studies, English and digital humanities. These innovative contributions investigate the afterlives of a novel taught in a disparate array of courses - Frankenstein disturbs and transcends boundaries, be they political, ethical, theological, aesthetic, and not least of media, ensuring its vibrant presence in contemporary popular culture. Transmedia Creatures highlights how cultural content is redistributed through multiple media, forms and modes of production (including user-generated ones from “below”) that often appear synchronously and dismantle and renew established readings of the text, while at the same time incorporating and revitalizing aspects that have always been central to it. The authors engage with concepts, value systems and aesthetic-moral categories—among them the family, horror, monstrosity, diversity, education, risk, technology, the body—from a variety of contemporary approaches and highly original perspectives, which yields new connections. Ultimately, Frankenstein, as evidenced by this collection, is paradoxically enriched by the heteroglossia of preconceptions, misreadings, and overreadings that attend it, and that reveal the complex interweaving of perceptions and responses it generates. Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
