A Guide for the Perplexed: Science Fiction

Description

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. Cover HalfTitle Series Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments CHAPTER ONE What is science fiction? Origins Genre definitions Gernsback’s new sort of magazine Science fictions Discussion questions CHAPTER TWO The literature of technologically saturated societies Science and science fiction Hard sf Campbell’s Golden Age Science and gender Discussion questions CHAPTER THREE Cognitive estrangement Cognition versus spectacle The limits of cognitive estrangement Science fiction as critical theory Discussion questions CHAPTER FOUR The megatext Robots in the megatext Parabolic narrative Alien invasion in the megatext Megatext as dialectic Discussion questions CHAPTER FIVE Speculative fiction The new wave Dangerous technoculture Expanding genre boundaries Expanding genre boundaries Remaking human potentialities Discussion questions CHAPTER SIX Communities of practice Material cultures of science fiction Cyberspace and cyberpunk Posthuman life and singularity fiction Science fiction as “fact” Fan culture as critic Discussion questions CHAPTER SEVEN The literature of ideas Feminist science fiction Queer science fiction Race and ethnicity in science fiction Discussion questions CHAPTER EIGHT The literature of change Philosophical change Social change Technological change Changing aesthetic tradition Discussion questions CHAPTER NINE Science fictionality Living in a science fiction world The persistence of science fiction Discussion questions CHRONOLOGY NOTES FURTHER READING BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX