Robert M. Geraci
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195393026
- eISBN:
- 9780199777136
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195393026.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Apocalyptic AI is transmitted to roboticists and AI researchers through science fiction and is expressed in pop science as a means of raising the cultural prestige of research and researchers and ...
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Apocalyptic AI is transmitted to roboticists and AI researchers through science fiction and is expressed in pop science as a means of raising the cultural prestige of research and researchers and justifying funding spent on robotics and AI. Science fiction often uses religious imagery and language to explore culture and several authors have engaged the idea that human beings might upload their minds into machines. The influence of science fiction is widely accepted among roboticists, who gain inspiration from it, as almost certainly happened for Hans Moravec, the pioneer of Apocalyptic AI thinking. Popular science authors in robotics and AI fuse religious and scientific work into a meaningful worldview in order to gain the benefits of both. Such role-hybridization increases the prestige of the researchers and plays a part in military, government and private investment in robotics and AI.Less
Apocalyptic AI is transmitted to roboticists and AI researchers through science fiction and is expressed in pop science as a means of raising the cultural prestige of research and researchers and justifying funding spent on robotics and AI. Science fiction often uses religious imagery and language to explore culture and several authors have engaged the idea that human beings might upload their minds into machines. The influence of science fiction is widely accepted among roboticists, who gain inspiration from it, as almost certainly happened for Hans Moravec, the pioneer of Apocalyptic AI thinking. Popular science authors in robotics and AI fuse religious and scientific work into a meaningful worldview in order to gain the benefits of both. Such role-hybridization increases the prestige of the researchers and plays a part in military, government and private investment in robotics and AI.
Terryl C. Givens
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195167115
- eISBN:
- 9780199785599
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167115.003.0018
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The first great Mormon literature came only with the “Lost Generation” of the 40s, with authors like Maurine Whipple and Virginia Sorensen. The novel has flourished (with Levi Peterson a major ...
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The first great Mormon literature came only with the “Lost Generation” of the 40s, with authors like Maurine Whipple and Virginia Sorensen. The novel has flourished (with Levi Peterson a major figure), as has the short story (Douglas Thayer and Donald Marshall leading the way) poetry, and even science fiction (Orson Scott Card).Less
The first great Mormon literature came only with the “Lost Generation” of the 40s, with authors like Maurine Whipple and Virginia Sorensen. The novel has flourished (with Levi Peterson a major figure), as has the short story (Douglas Thayer and Donald Marshall leading the way) poetry, and even science fiction (Orson Scott Card).
Gavin Miller
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620603
- eISBN:
- 9781789623758
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620603.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
For the purposes of this book, science fiction is defined broadly in the terms advanced by Darko Suvin, with a focus on the genre from the late nineteenth century onwards. Psychology is conceived as ...
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For the purposes of this book, science fiction is defined broadly in the terms advanced by Darko Suvin, with a focus on the genre from the late nineteenth century onwards. Psychology is conceived as the modern Western discipline, running from the origins of experimental psychology in the late nineteenth century to the ascendance of neuroscience as a disciplinary rival in the late twentieth century. Five different functions for psychological discourses in science fiction are proposed. The didactic-futurological function educates the non-specialist through extrapolation of psychological technologies, teaching within the context of futurological forecasting. The utopianfunction anchors in historical possibility the imagining of a currently non-existent society, whether utopian or dystopian. The cognitive-estranging function defamiliarizes and denaturalizes social reality by extrapolating current social tendencies and/or construct unsettling fictional analogues of the reader’s world. The metafictional function self-consciously thematizes within narrative fiction the psychological origins, nature, and function of science fiction as a genre. The reflexive function addresses the construction of individuals and groups who have reflexively adopted the ‘truth’ of psychological knowledge.Less
For the purposes of this book, science fiction is defined broadly in the terms advanced by Darko Suvin, with a focus on the genre from the late nineteenth century onwards. Psychology is conceived as the modern Western discipline, running from the origins of experimental psychology in the late nineteenth century to the ascendance of neuroscience as a disciplinary rival in the late twentieth century. Five different functions for psychological discourses in science fiction are proposed. The didactic-futurological function educates the non-specialist through extrapolation of psychological technologies, teaching within the context of futurological forecasting. The utopianfunction anchors in historical possibility the imagining of a currently non-existent society, whether utopian or dystopian. The cognitive-estranging function defamiliarizes and denaturalizes social reality by extrapolating current social tendencies and/or construct unsettling fictional analogues of the reader’s world. The metafictional function self-consciously thematizes within narrative fiction the psychological origins, nature, and function of science fiction as a genre. The reflexive function addresses the construction of individuals and groups who have reflexively adopted the ‘truth’ of psychological knowledge.
John Wilson Foster
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199232833
- eISBN:
- 9780191716454
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232833.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter analyzes science fiction and the supernatural in Irish novels. These include books such as H. G. Wells' The Time Machine and Robert Cromie's The Crack of Doom. Several ghost stories are ...
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This chapter analyzes science fiction and the supernatural in Irish novels. These include books such as H. G. Wells' The Time Machine and Robert Cromie's The Crack of Doom. Several ghost stories are also considered.Less
This chapter analyzes science fiction and the supernatural in Irish novels. These include books such as H. G. Wells' The Time Machine and Robert Cromie's The Crack of Doom. Several ghost stories are also considered.
Simon J. James
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199606597
- eISBN:
- 9780191738517
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199606597.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
The scientific discoveries of the Victorian era enlarged the scope of fantastic fiction. Wells extrapolates from evolutionary theory, geology, temporal physics, and optics to imagine alternate forms ...
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The scientific discoveries of the Victorian era enlarged the scope of fantastic fiction. Wells extrapolates from evolutionary theory, geology, temporal physics, and optics to imagine alternate forms of cultural production. Wells’s use of the fantastic does not constitute escapism, however. The irruption of the fantastic into an otherwise realistically narrated fictional world is a reminder that the indefinite passing of history will repeatedly threaten or displace humanity’s misplaced faith in its imagined superior position in the hierarchy of nature. Darwin’s formulation of the theory of evolution, and Wells’s imagining of fictional possibilities, constitute both an opportunity and a warning for humankind: Wells repeatedly insists on the impermanence of the status quo. This chapter also notes the frequency of images of reading and writing in Wells’s fiction: numerous texts include images of defaced or ineffective books and other artworks.Less
The scientific discoveries of the Victorian era enlarged the scope of fantastic fiction. Wells extrapolates from evolutionary theory, geology, temporal physics, and optics to imagine alternate forms of cultural production. Wells’s use of the fantastic does not constitute escapism, however. The irruption of the fantastic into an otherwise realistically narrated fictional world is a reminder that the indefinite passing of history will repeatedly threaten or displace humanity’s misplaced faith in its imagined superior position in the hierarchy of nature. Darwin’s formulation of the theory of evolution, and Wells’s imagining of fictional possibilities, constitute both an opportunity and a warning for humankind: Wells repeatedly insists on the impermanence of the status quo. This chapter also notes the frequency of images of reading and writing in Wells’s fiction: numerous texts include images of defaced or ineffective books and other artworks.
Joseph W. Campbell
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496824721
- eISBN:
- 9781496824776
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496824721.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Chapter 2 shows in a compressed, somewhat truncated way, the unique history of science fiction (sometimes called speculative fiction). This chapter also shows some of the myriad theoretical ...
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Chapter 2 shows in a compressed, somewhat truncated way, the unique history of science fiction (sometimes called speculative fiction). This chapter also shows some of the myriad theoretical approaches that have been used in the study of science fiction over time. It then demonstrates how those approaches have been used by giving close readings of science fiction texts intended for young adults. This is in an effort to show the difference between science fiction and dystopian literature. It shows that it is a literature directly concerned with the subject’s encounter with the o/Other.Less
Chapter 2 shows in a compressed, somewhat truncated way, the unique history of science fiction (sometimes called speculative fiction). This chapter also shows some of the myriad theoretical approaches that have been used in the study of science fiction over time. It then demonstrates how those approaches have been used by giving close readings of science fiction texts intended for young adults. This is in an effort to show the difference between science fiction and dystopian literature. It shows that it is a literature directly concerned with the subject’s encounter with the o/Other.
Mike Ashley
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780853237693
- eISBN:
- 9781781380840
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853237693.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This is the second of three volumes that chart the history of the science fiction magazine from the earliest days to the present. The first volume, Time Machines, traced the development of the ...
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This is the second of three volumes that chart the history of the science fiction magazine from the earliest days to the present. The first volume, Time Machines, traced the development of the science fiction magazine from its earliest days and the creation of the first specialist magazine, Amazing Stories. This book takes up the story to reveal a turbulent period that was to witness the extraordinary rise and fall and rise again of science. It charts the science fiction boom years in the wake of the nuclear age that was to see the ‘The Golden Age’ of Science Fiction, with the emergence of magazines such as Galaxy, Startling Stories, and Fantastic, as well as authors like Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and Frank Herbert. The book then goes on to explore the bust years of 1954–1960, followed by the renaissance in the 1960s led by the new wave of British authors such as Michael Moorcock and J. G. Ballard, and the rise in interest of fantasy fiction, encouraged by The Lord of the Rings and the Conan books of Robert E. Howard. It concludes with an examination of the newfound interest in science fiction magazines during the late 1960s and the incredibly influential roles Star Trek, the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and, above all, the first manned Moon landing played in transforming the science fiction magazine.Less
This is the second of three volumes that chart the history of the science fiction magazine from the earliest days to the present. The first volume, Time Machines, traced the development of the science fiction magazine from its earliest days and the creation of the first specialist magazine, Amazing Stories. This book takes up the story to reveal a turbulent period that was to witness the extraordinary rise and fall and rise again of science. It charts the science fiction boom years in the wake of the nuclear age that was to see the ‘The Golden Age’ of Science Fiction, with the emergence of magazines such as Galaxy, Startling Stories, and Fantastic, as well as authors like Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and Frank Herbert. The book then goes on to explore the bust years of 1954–1960, followed by the renaissance in the 1960s led by the new wave of British authors such as Michael Moorcock and J. G. Ballard, and the rise in interest of fantasy fiction, encouraged by The Lord of the Rings and the Conan books of Robert E. Howard. It concludes with an examination of the newfound interest in science fiction magazines during the late 1960s and the incredibly influential roles Star Trek, the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and, above all, the first manned Moon landing played in transforming the science fiction magazine.
Gavin Miller
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620603
- eISBN:
- 9781789623758
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620603.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Psychology and Science Fiction goes beyond such incidental observations and engagements to offer an in-depth exploration of science fiction literature’s varied use of psychological discourses, ...
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Psychology and Science Fiction goes beyond such incidental observations and engagements to offer an in-depth exploration of science fiction literature’s varied use of psychological discourses, beginning at the birth of modern psychology in the late nineteenth century, and concluding with the ascendance of neuroscience in the late twentieth century. Rather than dwelling on psychoanalytic readings, this literary investigation combines with history of psychology to offer attentive textual readings that explore five key psychological schools: evolutionary psychology, psychoanalysis, behaviourism, existential-humanism, and cognitivism. The varied functions of psychological discourses in science fiction are explored, whether to popularise and prophesy, to imagine utopia or dystopia, to estrange our everyday reality, to comment on science fiction itself, or to abet (or resist) the spread of psychological wisdom. Psychology and Science Fiction also considers how psychology itself has made use of science fiction in order to teach, to secure legitimacy as a discipline, and to comment on the present.Less
Psychology and Science Fiction goes beyond such incidental observations and engagements to offer an in-depth exploration of science fiction literature’s varied use of psychological discourses, beginning at the birth of modern psychology in the late nineteenth century, and concluding with the ascendance of neuroscience in the late twentieth century. Rather than dwelling on psychoanalytic readings, this literary investigation combines with history of psychology to offer attentive textual readings that explore five key psychological schools: evolutionary psychology, psychoanalysis, behaviourism, existential-humanism, and cognitivism. The varied functions of psychological discourses in science fiction are explored, whether to popularise and prophesy, to imagine utopia or dystopia, to estrange our everyday reality, to comment on science fiction itself, or to abet (or resist) the spread of psychological wisdom. Psychology and Science Fiction also considers how psychology itself has made use of science fiction in order to teach, to secure legitimacy as a discipline, and to comment on the present.
Mike Ashley
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846310027
- eISBN:
- 9781781380536
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310027.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This third volume in a four-volume study of science fiction magazines focuses on the turbulent years of the 1970s, when the United States emerged from the Vietnam War into an economic crisis. It saw ...
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This third volume in a four-volume study of science fiction magazines focuses on the turbulent years of the 1970s, when the United States emerged from the Vietnam War into an economic crisis. It saw the end of the Apollo moon programme and the start of the ecology movement. This proved to be one of the most complicated periods for the science fiction magazines. Not only were they struggling to survive within the economic climate, they also had to cope with the death of the father of modern science fiction, John W. Campbell, Jr., while facing new and potentially threatening opposition. The market for science fiction diversified as never before, with the growth in new anthologies, the emergence of semi-professional magazines, the explosion of science fiction in college, the start of role-playing gaming magazines, underground and adult comics, and, with the success of Star Wars, media magazines. The book explores how the traditional science fiction magazines coped with this, from the death of Campbell to the start of the major popular science magazine Omni and the first dreams of the Internet.Less
This third volume in a four-volume study of science fiction magazines focuses on the turbulent years of the 1970s, when the United States emerged from the Vietnam War into an economic crisis. It saw the end of the Apollo moon programme and the start of the ecology movement. This proved to be one of the most complicated periods for the science fiction magazines. Not only were they struggling to survive within the economic climate, they also had to cope with the death of the father of modern science fiction, John W. Campbell, Jr., while facing new and potentially threatening opposition. The market for science fiction diversified as never before, with the growth in new anthologies, the emergence of semi-professional magazines, the explosion of science fiction in college, the start of role-playing gaming magazines, underground and adult comics, and, with the success of Star Wars, media magazines. The book explores how the traditional science fiction magazines coped with this, from the death of Campbell to the start of the major popular science magazine Omni and the first dreams of the Internet.
Mike Ashley
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846310027
- eISBN:
- 9781781380536
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310027.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the emergence of the factors that threatened science fiction magazine readership in the 1970s. Besides the growing patronage for television, radio, and cinema, comic books also ...
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This chapter discusses the emergence of the factors that threatened science fiction magazine readership in the 1970s. Besides the growing patronage for television, radio, and cinema, comic books also emerged as one of the major rivals of science fiction magazines. The chapter furthermore points out that the chief rival of the science fiction magazines was the pocketbook, which sported top-quality science fiction novels that pulled reader away from depending on science fiction magazines.Less
This chapter discusses the emergence of the factors that threatened science fiction magazine readership in the 1970s. Besides the growing patronage for television, radio, and cinema, comic books also emerged as one of the major rivals of science fiction magazines. The chapter furthermore points out that the chief rival of the science fiction magazines was the pocketbook, which sported top-quality science fiction novels that pulled reader away from depending on science fiction magazines.
James H. Murphy
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199596997
- eISBN:
- 9780191723520
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199596997.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
The last decades of the century saw great changes in the writing of fiction. In Britain, where George Moore, Oscar Wilde, and Bram Stoker were among the most prominent novelists, high-culture ...
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The last decades of the century saw great changes in the writing of fiction. In Britain, where George Moore, Oscar Wilde, and Bram Stoker were among the most prominent novelists, high-culture movements such as naturalism, decadence, and early modernism, vied with popular forms such as detective fiction, the imperial adventure, and science fiction. Authors like B. M. Croker wrote novels of life in India, while Robert Cromie was prominent in science-fiction and future-war fantasies. In Ireland groupings of writers wrote for differing audiences. Ulster fiction began to emerge in the north with Shan F. Bullock and others. Meanwhile, in the south, Anglo-Irish novelists like Somerville and Ross took to comedy and satire, while Catholic-intelligentsia writers began to scrutinize a changed society. Some novels explored the possibilities of the renewal of society while others interrogated the newer sets of relationships that were possible across traditional class lines and the great landlord–tenant divide, now that the latter was in the process of dissolving.Less
The last decades of the century saw great changes in the writing of fiction. In Britain, where George Moore, Oscar Wilde, and Bram Stoker were among the most prominent novelists, high-culture movements such as naturalism, decadence, and early modernism, vied with popular forms such as detective fiction, the imperial adventure, and science fiction. Authors like B. M. Croker wrote novels of life in India, while Robert Cromie was prominent in science-fiction and future-war fantasies. In Ireland groupings of writers wrote for differing audiences. Ulster fiction began to emerge in the north with Shan F. Bullock and others. Meanwhile, in the south, Anglo-Irish novelists like Somerville and Ross took to comedy and satire, while Catholic-intelligentsia writers began to scrutinize a changed society. Some novels explored the possibilities of the renewal of society while others interrogated the newer sets of relationships that were possible across traditional class lines and the great landlord–tenant divide, now that the latter was in the process of dissolving.
Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620283
- eISBN:
- 9781789629699
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620283.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This is the first book-length study of the relationship between science fiction, the techno-scientific policies of independent India, and the global non-aligned movement that emerged as a response to ...
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This is the first book-length study of the relationship between science fiction, the techno-scientific policies of independent India, and the global non-aligned movement that emerged as a response to Cold War and decolonization. Today, science-fiction writers are often used as government advisors on techno-scientific and defence policies. Such relationships between literature, policy and geo-politics have a long and complex history. Glimpses of this history can be seen in the case of the first generation of post-colonial Indian science fiction writers and their critical entanglements with both techno-scientific policies and the strategy of international non-alignment pursued by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. This investigation reveals the surprisingly long and relatively unknown life of Indian science fiction, as well as the genre’s capacity to imagine alternative pathways to techno-scientific and geo-political developments that dominate our lives today.Less
This is the first book-length study of the relationship between science fiction, the techno-scientific policies of independent India, and the global non-aligned movement that emerged as a response to Cold War and decolonization. Today, science-fiction writers are often used as government advisors on techno-scientific and defence policies. Such relationships between literature, policy and geo-politics have a long and complex history. Glimpses of this history can be seen in the case of the first generation of post-colonial Indian science fiction writers and their critical entanglements with both techno-scientific policies and the strategy of international non-alignment pursued by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. This investigation reveals the surprisingly long and relatively unknown life of Indian science fiction, as well as the genre’s capacity to imagine alternative pathways to techno-scientific and geo-political developments that dominate our lives today.
J. P. Telotte and Gerald Duchovnay (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781381830
- eISBN:
- 9781781382363
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381830.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Critical discussion of cult cinema has often noted its tendency to straddle or ignore boundaries, to pull together different sets of conventions, narrative formulas, or character types for the almost ...
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Critical discussion of cult cinema has often noted its tendency to straddle or ignore boundaries, to pull together different sets of conventions, narrative formulas, or character types for the almost surreal pleasure to be found in their sudden juxtapositions or narrative combination. With its own boundary-blurring nature — as both science and fiction, reality and fantasy — science fiction (sf) has played a key role in such cinematic cult formation. This volume examines that largely unexplored relationship, looking at how the sf film's own double nature neatly matches up with a persistent double vision common to the cult film. It does so by addressing key questions about the intersections of sf and cult cinema: how different genre elements, directors, and stars contribute to cult formation; what role fan activities, including ‘con’ participation, play in cult development; and how the occulted or ‘bad’ sf cult film works. The volume pursues these questions by addressing a variety of such sf cult works, including Robot Monster (1953), Zardoz (1974), A Boy and His Dog (1975), Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Space Truckers (1996), Ghost in the Shell 2 (2004), and Iron Sky (2012). What these chapters afford is a revealing vision of both the sf aspects of much cult film activity and the cultish aspects of the whole sf genre.Less
Critical discussion of cult cinema has often noted its tendency to straddle or ignore boundaries, to pull together different sets of conventions, narrative formulas, or character types for the almost surreal pleasure to be found in their sudden juxtapositions or narrative combination. With its own boundary-blurring nature — as both science and fiction, reality and fantasy — science fiction (sf) has played a key role in such cinematic cult formation. This volume examines that largely unexplored relationship, looking at how the sf film's own double nature neatly matches up with a persistent double vision common to the cult film. It does so by addressing key questions about the intersections of sf and cult cinema: how different genre elements, directors, and stars contribute to cult formation; what role fan activities, including ‘con’ participation, play in cult development; and how the occulted or ‘bad’ sf cult film works. The volume pursues these questions by addressing a variety of such sf cult works, including Robot Monster (1953), Zardoz (1974), A Boy and His Dog (1975), Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Space Truckers (1996), Ghost in the Shell 2 (2004), and Iron Sky (2012). What these chapters afford is a revealing vision of both the sf aspects of much cult film activity and the cultish aspects of the whole sf genre.
Rob Latham
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781381830
- eISBN:
- 9781781382363
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381830.003.0014
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The New Wave movement involved a rising science fiction (sf) avant-garde that sought to remake a genre traditionally inclined towards technocratic scientism and conservative narrative style into a ...
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The New Wave movement involved a rising science fiction (sf) avant-garde that sought to remake a genre traditionally inclined towards technocratic scientism and conservative narrative style into a more experimental, counterculturally savvy mode of writing whose perspectives on technological modernity had a subversive critical edge. This chapter examines the imbrication of the New Wave with contemporaneous sf cinema, highlighted by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but with a special focus on two low-budget films of the 1970s that have developed a cult reputation and had clear links, textually or tonally, with the movement: Dark Star (1974) and A Boy and His Dog (1975). These two works share not only ideological terrain but also a certain mode of cult reception with New Wave fiction, coming to constitute — along with Kubrick's sf films of the period, 2001 and A Clockwork Orange (1971) — a kind of New Wave cinematic canon.Less
The New Wave movement involved a rising science fiction (sf) avant-garde that sought to remake a genre traditionally inclined towards technocratic scientism and conservative narrative style into a more experimental, counterculturally savvy mode of writing whose perspectives on technological modernity had a subversive critical edge. This chapter examines the imbrication of the New Wave with contemporaneous sf cinema, highlighted by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but with a special focus on two low-budget films of the 1970s that have developed a cult reputation and had clear links, textually or tonally, with the movement: Dark Star (1974) and A Boy and His Dog (1975). These two works share not only ideological terrain but also a certain mode of cult reception with New Wave fiction, coming to constitute — along with Kubrick's sf films of the period, 2001 and A Clockwork Orange (1971) — a kind of New Wave cinematic canon.
Alexis Lothian
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479811748
- eISBN:
- 9781479854585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479811748.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter unpacks what is at stake in Old Futures’ identification of a queer cultural politics for speculative fiction, in terms of both of queer studies’ approaches to time and scholarship on ...
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This chapter unpacks what is at stake in Old Futures’ identification of a queer cultural politics for speculative fiction, in terms of both of queer studies’ approaches to time and scholarship on futuristic cultural production. It offers a brief history of intersections between queerness and speculative temporality and their entanglement with gender and race, before describing the book’s archive and its framing of speculative fiction as a cultural logic that exceeds literary and media genre studies. The chapter also articulates the centrality of reproduction to the project, which crafts an alternative discourse around the dominant heteronormative temporalities that Lee Edelman influentially critiqued in his 2004 book, No Future. In queer studies, reproductive futurism has primarily been an object of critique. In contrast, Old Futures argue that there are many reproductive futurisms, often in conflict and contradiction with one another, whose complexities are unpacked throughout the book.Less
This chapter unpacks what is at stake in Old Futures’ identification of a queer cultural politics for speculative fiction, in terms of both of queer studies’ approaches to time and scholarship on futuristic cultural production. It offers a brief history of intersections between queerness and speculative temporality and their entanglement with gender and race, before describing the book’s archive and its framing of speculative fiction as a cultural logic that exceeds literary and media genre studies. The chapter also articulates the centrality of reproduction to the project, which crafts an alternative discourse around the dominant heteronormative temporalities that Lee Edelman influentially critiqued in his 2004 book, No Future. In queer studies, reproductive futurism has primarily been an object of critique. In contrast, Old Futures argue that there are many reproductive futurisms, often in conflict and contradiction with one another, whose complexities are unpacked throughout the book.
Christine Cornea
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748624652
- eISBN:
- 9780748671106
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748624652.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The science fiction film genre is separate from the irrational or unconscious meanderings of the human mind. In line with this, this book regularly pertains to examples of the genre that can found on ...
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The science fiction film genre is separate from the irrational or unconscious meanderings of the human mind. In line with this, this book regularly pertains to examples of the genre that can found on television, in books, comics, video games and even fine art, as part of the project to locate the films within a wider cultural context. Science fiction has surely adopted material from both the musical and horror film. The genre of science fiction film allows the kind of debate witnessed among critics, writers and aficionados of the written novels. The chapter then looks at what might be called proto-science fiction films. These films came before the science fiction film which boom in the 1950s. It is shown that Metropolis had a huge impact on science fiction. The interwar films evidently address the political and social unrest of their times. Until the 1950s, the science fiction feature film genre actually started in America.Less
The science fiction film genre is separate from the irrational or unconscious meanderings of the human mind. In line with this, this book regularly pertains to examples of the genre that can found on television, in books, comics, video games and even fine art, as part of the project to locate the films within a wider cultural context. Science fiction has surely adopted material from both the musical and horror film. The genre of science fiction film allows the kind of debate witnessed among critics, writers and aficionados of the written novels. The chapter then looks at what might be called proto-science fiction films. These films came before the science fiction film which boom in the 1950s. It is shown that Metropolis had a huge impact on science fiction. The interwar films evidently address the political and social unrest of their times. Until the 1950s, the science fiction feature film genre actually started in America.
Mike Ashley
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846310027
- eISBN:
- 9781781380536
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310027.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter explores the changes in science fiction magazines during the 1970s. It notes that when the Astounding editor John W. Campbell died in 1971, he was replaced by Ben Bova, who gave free ...
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This chapter explores the changes in science fiction magazines during the 1970s. It notes that when the Astounding editor John W. Campbell died in 1971, he was replaced by Ben Bova, who gave free rein to his writers, allowing them to be more liberated than in Campbell's tenure – this leniency gave rise to dystopian stories such as Pigeon City and Not Polluted Enough. The 1970s also bore witness to the loss of several science fiction writers, like James H. Schmitz and Clifford Simak.Less
This chapter explores the changes in science fiction magazines during the 1970s. It notes that when the Astounding editor John W. Campbell died in 1971, he was replaced by Ben Bova, who gave free rein to his writers, allowing them to be more liberated than in Campbell's tenure – this leniency gave rise to dystopian stories such as Pigeon City and Not Polluted Enough. The 1970s also bore witness to the loss of several science fiction writers, like James H. Schmitz and Clifford Simak.
Mike Ashley
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846310027
- eISBN:
- 9781781380536
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846310027.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter explores the emergence of little magazines for science fiction in the 1970s. A little magazine is defined as a literary magazine published on a nonprofit basis, but only to publish and ...
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This chapter explores the emergence of little magazines for science fiction in the 1970s. A little magazine is defined as a literary magazine published on a nonprofit basis, but only to publish and study literature as an art form. The chapter provides examples of science fiction little magazines, such as Algol, Thrust, and Riverside Quarterly, and argues that they were made for the serious analysis of science fiction literature.Less
This chapter explores the emergence of little magazines for science fiction in the 1970s. A little magazine is defined as a literary magazine published on a nonprofit basis, but only to publish and study literature as an art form. The chapter provides examples of science fiction little magazines, such as Algol, Thrust, and Riverside Quarterly, and argues that they were made for the serious analysis of science fiction literature.
Ruth Cruickshank
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199571758
- eISBN:
- 9780191721793
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571758.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, European Literature
This chapter turns to Houellebecq, France's most famous — and controversial — living writer; the affaire Houellebecq; Extension du domaine de la lutte; and Les Particules élémentaires. It discusses ...
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This chapter turns to Houellebecq, France's most famous — and controversial — living writer; the affaire Houellebecq; Extension du domaine de la lutte; and Les Particules élémentaires. It discusses Houellebecq's representations of an extension of American‐style neoliberal competition from the material to the sexual economy, attributed to the generation of May 1968 and legitimized by French thinkers, psychoanalysis, and the media. Literary commitment is identified in representations of the struggle of the writer and narrative strategies are assessed, including ‘factual’ injections, autobiographical detail, and tropes from science fiction and marketing. The texts' provocative elements are discussed as both ideological challenges to dominant discourses, and as sleights of hand perpetuating misogynist, sexual, and racial prejudices. Houellebecq's fictions are described as seeking to expose, harness, and question both their own sense‐making narratives and contradictory fin de millénaire crisis discourses, simultaneously foregrounding the notion of the potential, and the need for change.Less
This chapter turns to Houellebecq, France's most famous — and controversial — living writer; the affaire Houellebecq; Extension du domaine de la lutte; and Les Particules élémentaires. It discusses Houellebecq's representations of an extension of American‐style neoliberal competition from the material to the sexual economy, attributed to the generation of May 1968 and legitimized by French thinkers, psychoanalysis, and the media. Literary commitment is identified in representations of the struggle of the writer and narrative strategies are assessed, including ‘factual’ injections, autobiographical detail, and tropes from science fiction and marketing. The texts' provocative elements are discussed as both ideological challenges to dominant discourses, and as sleights of hand perpetuating misogynist, sexual, and racial prejudices. Houellebecq's fictions are described as seeking to expose, harness, and question both their own sense‐making narratives and contradictory fin de millénaire crisis discourses, simultaneously foregrounding the notion of the potential, and the need for change.
J. P. Telotte
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781781381830
- eISBN:
- 9781781382363
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781781381830.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, namely to track the relationship between the cult film and the science fiction (sf) genre, exploring a connection that has always seemed closer, ...
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This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, namely to track the relationship between the cult film and the science fiction (sf) genre, exploring a connection that has always seemed closer, somehow even more natural than in the case of most other film genres. In fact, sf has typically enjoyed a special version of the relationship between audience and text that critics often cite as one of the defining features of the cult film experience. The chapter then discusses the reasons why is it especially useful or important to focus attention specifically on sf texts for this investigation. This is followed by an overview of the subsequent chapters.Less
This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, namely to track the relationship between the cult film and the science fiction (sf) genre, exploring a connection that has always seemed closer, somehow even more natural than in the case of most other film genres. In fact, sf has typically enjoyed a special version of the relationship between audience and text that critics often cite as one of the defining features of the cult film experience. The chapter then discusses the reasons why is it especially useful or important to focus attention specifically on sf texts for this investigation. This is followed by an overview of the subsequent chapters.
