Ethical Futures And Global Science Fiction

Description

Ethical Futures and Global Science Fiction explores the ethical concerns and dimensions of representations of the future of global science fiction, focusing on the issues that dominate utopian, dystopian and science fiction literature. The essays examine recent visions of the future in science fiction and re-examine earlier texts through contemporary lenses. Across fourteen chapters, the collection considers authors from Algeria, Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Macedonia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the UK and USA. The volume delves into a range of ethical questions of immediate contemporary relevance, including environmental ethics, postcolonial ethics, social justice, animal ethics and the ethics of alterity. Preface......Page 6 Acknowledgements......Page 10 Praise for Ethical Futures and Global Science Fiction......Page 11 Contents......Page 12 Notes on Contributors......Page 15 Part I: Ethics and the Other......Page 19 Introduction......Page 20 Totality and Ethics......Page 21 Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy......Page 22 Infinity and the Face-to-Face Encounter......Page 28 Yevgeny Zamyatin’s МЫ......Page 29 Science Fiction and the Unenglobable Literary Space......Page 35 Conclusion......Page 38 Works Cited......Page 42 Chapter 2: Inversion and Prolepsis: Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Feminist Utopian Strategies......Page 45 Hossain’s Life and Works......Page 47 Hossain’s Rhetorical Strategies in Sultana’s Dream and পদ্মরাগ......Page 49 Hossain’s Dual Vision of Feminist Ethics......Page 57 Works Cited......Page 62 Introduction......Page 64 Formative Utopias......Page 66 Nineteenth-Century Utopias......Page 68 H. G. Wells......Page 71 Feminist and Critical Utopias......Page 75 Ecological Utopias......Page 79 Conclusion......Page 81 Works Cited......Page 86 Part II: Environmental Ethics......Page 89 Introduction......Page 90 Utopia, Eutopia and Dystopia......Page 91 An Ideal Typology of Contemporary Climate Fiction......Page 94 Some Preliminary Generalisations......Page 96 Climate Eutopias: Robinson, Fleck, Atwood......Page 99 Works Cited......Page 107 Introduction......Page 111 Defining an Ecological Posthumanism......Page 112 A Transhumanist Perspective of Michel Houellebecq’s Les Particules élémentaires......Page 116 Ecological Posthumanism in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy......Page 121 The Role of Liminality in Our Ecological Future......Page 126 Works Cited......Page 128 Introduction......Page 131 The Utopian-Dystopian Dialectic in the Three-Body Problem......Page 132 The Utopian Legacy: Science Fiction and Socialist Realism......Page 136 Utopian Reason and Its Nihilistic Fate......Page 138 Allegorising Extinction and the End of Science Fiction......Page 142 Conclusion: Utopia Must Die......Page 146 Works Cited......Page 149 Introduction......Page 153 Mythic Time, Ecopocalypse, and Visions of Hope......Page 157 Crisis of Representation......Page 161 Ecopocalypse and Social Degradation......Page 166 Bridge the Human/Nature Divide......Page 168 Conclusion......Page 169 Works Cited......Page 173 Part III: Postcolonial Ethics......Page 175 Introduction......Page 176 Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis......Page 181 Slavery......Page 184 Ethics of Cloning and Interbreeding......Page 186 Is Oankali Culture Ethical?......Page 187 Transcultural Ethics......Page 191 Conclusion......Page 194 Works Cited......Page 195 Introduction......Page 197 The Calcutta Chromosome as Postcolonial Science Fiction......Page 201 Science Fiction and Postcolonial Ethics......Page 205 When Western Science Met the Colonised......Page 206 Silence Is Power......Page 210 The Postcolonial Cyborg......Page 212 Conclusion......Page 215 Works Cited......Page 217 Chapter 10: Wagering the Future: Split Collectives and Decolonial Praxis in Assia Djebar’s Ombre sultane and Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber......Page 220 Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism and African Futurism......Page 222 Dependency and Splitting......Page 225 Care as Consensus: Split Collectives......Page 232 Concluding Remarks......Page 238 Works Cited......Page 240 Part IV: Ethics and Global Politics......Page 242 Introduction......Page 243 Louis-Sébastien Mercier’s Pre-revolutionary Projections......Page 245 City of Light: City of Dark......Page 247 French Secular State Ethics......Page 250 Michel Houellebecq’s Islamic Agendas......Page 254 Conclusion......Page 262 Works Cited......Page 265 Chapter 12: The Appearance of Dystopian Fiction in Macedonia and its Ethical Concerns......Page 269 The Political Circumstances and Settings of the Novels......Page 271 The Rulers’ Concealment of the Past and the Protagonists’ Nostalgia......Page 276 Wars and Dehumanisation......Page 282 Ambiguous Visions of the Future......Page 284 Works Cited......Page 288 Chapter 13: Cairo in 2015 and in 2023: The Dreadful Fates of the Egyptian Capital in Jamil Nasir’s Tower of Dreams and Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s Utopia......Page 290 Two Rare Science Fiction Imaginings of Cairo......Page 292 Orient of the Past, Orient of the Future: A Well of Images......Page 294 Urban Dysfunction......Page 295 Vertical Segregation/Horizontal Segregation......Page 298 Grand Projects and Black Clouds......Page 299 The New Economic and Social Reality......Page 300 Geopolitics of the Middle East: A World of Chaos and Dependence on the West......Page 302 Cairo, an Eschatological City: Earthquakes and Revolutions......Page 303 Conclusion......Page 304 Works Cited......Page 307 Chapter 14: Post-Capitalist Futures: A Report on Imagination......Page 309 The Return of Realism?......Page 311 Cli-Fi and Crisis......Page 312 Post-Capitalism: Theory and Practice......Page 314 Reading (Post-)Capitalist Possibilities......Page 317 The Politics of Time (Travel)......Page 320 Looking Backward at Looking Backward......Page 321 Utopia as Redemptive (Class) Struggle......Page 324 Why Utopia Is So Hard......Page 326 Why Utopia Is So Necessary......Page 328 Works Cited......Page 330 Index......Page 334