Critical Theory and Science Fiction

Critical Theory and Science Fiction PDF Author: Carl Freedman
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819574546
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book of the Year. This innovative cultural critique offers valuable insights into science fiction, thus enlarging our understanding of critical theory. Carl Freedman traces the fundamental and mostly unexamined relationships between the discourses of science fiction and critical theory, arguing that science fiction is (or ought to be) a privileged genre for critical theory. He asserts that it is no accident that the upsurge of academic interest in science fiction since the 1970s coincides with the heyday of literary theory, and that likewise science fiction is one of the most theoretically informed areas of the literary profession. Extended readings of novels by five of the most important modern science fiction authors illustrate the affinity between science fiction and critical theory, in each case concentrating on one major novel that resonates with concerns proper to critical theory. Freedman's five readings are: Solaris: Stanislaw Lem and the Structure of Cognition; The Dispossessed: Ursula LeGuin and the Ambiguities of Utopia; The Two of Them: Joanna Russ and the Violence of Gender; Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand: Samuel Delany and the Dialectics of Difference; The Man in the High Castle: Philip K. Dick and the Construction of Realities.

Critical Theory and Science Fiction

Critical Theory and Science Fiction PDF Author: Carl Freedman
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819574546
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book of the Year. This innovative cultural critique offers valuable insights into science fiction, thus enlarging our understanding of critical theory. Carl Freedman traces the fundamental and mostly unexamined relationships between the discourses of science fiction and critical theory, arguing that science fiction is (or ought to be) a privileged genre for critical theory. He asserts that it is no accident that the upsurge of academic interest in science fiction since the 1970s coincides with the heyday of literary theory, and that likewise science fiction is one of the most theoretically informed areas of the literary profession. Extended readings of novels by five of the most important modern science fiction authors illustrate the affinity between science fiction and critical theory, in each case concentrating on one major novel that resonates with concerns proper to critical theory. Freedman's five readings are: Solaris: Stanislaw Lem and the Structure of Cognition; The Dispossessed: Ursula LeGuin and the Ambiguities of Utopia; The Two of Them: Joanna Russ and the Violence of Gender; Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand: Samuel Delany and the Dialectics of Difference; The Man in the High Castle: Philip K. Dick and the Construction of Realities.

Critical Theory and Science Fiction

Critical Theory and Science Fiction PDF Author: Vivian E. Jackson
Publisher: Hillcrest Publishing Group
ISBN: 1936400073
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
"Critical Theory and Science Fiction: A Lens Into Technology in Education," looks to show that reflection is our quantum leap into a past that provides the reasons for our challenges in education. Through reflection, we gain perspectives on how to best change a future that will ultimately become our history. "This text is an important and much-needed contribution to the study and analysis of the issues of technology and science fiction and their relationship to curriculum as well as the broader field of education. Jackson develops a critical theory of technology. Rather than simply accepting technological advancements, the work demystifies and questions the impacts of technology in new, critical, insightful, and exciting ways. A must-read." -William M. Reynolds, Georgia Southern University, "Curriculum: A River Runs Through It" "Using science fiction as a way to look at contemporary education philosophy and practice would seem an unlikely technique, and so it is likely to succeed. Science fiction remains remarkably advanced over the education establishment, which like the military is always getting ready to deal with the previous situation. Utopia-Gr., u-topos-means nowhere, or, moving the space, now here. Only the arts anticipate the future because only the artist lives in the present." -Eric McLuhan, "The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake, and Laws of Media: The New Science" (Marshall McLuhan, co-author)

Exploring the Limits of the Human through Science Fiction

Exploring the Limits of the Human through Science Fiction PDF Author: Gerald Alva Miller Jr.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137330791
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Through its engagement with different kinds of texts, Exploring the Limits of the Human through Science Fiction represents a new way of approaching both science fiction and critical theory, and its uses both to question what it means to be human in digital era.

Science Fiction

Science Fiction PDF Author: Patrick Parrinder
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317872657
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
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.

Practicing Science Fiction

Practicing Science Fiction PDF Author: Karen Hellekson
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 078645783X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
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.

Science Fiction, Critical Frontiers

Science Fiction, Critical Frontiers PDF Author: NA NA
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781349628346
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Science fiction has recently been identified as providing the narrative paradigm for postmodernity. This volume of essays combines theoretical discussions of the nature of science fiction, with specific studies of utopian and dystopian narratives. Alongside of this, the essays here address feminist and African American issues, the envisioning of radical alternative realities and futures, cyborgs, cyberpunk and cyber-space, age and aging, hybridity and monstrosity, and contemporary society and the postmodern condition.

Science Fiction and Cultural Theory

Science Fiction and Cultural Theory PDF Author: Sherryl Vint
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781138814981
Category : Literature and society
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book combines key theoretical statements that have become touchstones for work in the field with more recent theoretical inventions that showcase how theoretical paradigms central to science fiction such as posthumanism and mediation have become central to critical theory overall in the twenty-first century

Science Fiction, New Space Opera, and Neoliberal Globalism

Science Fiction, New Space Opera, and Neoliberal Globalism PDF Author: Jerome Winter
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1783169451
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
One of the few points critics and readers can agree upon when discussing the fiction popularly known as New Space Opera – a recent subgenre movement of science fiction – is its canny engagement with contemporary cultural politics in the age of globalisation. This book avers that the complex political allegories of New Space Opera respond to the recent cultural phenomenon known as neoliberalism, which entails the championing of the deregulation and privatisation of social services and programmes in the service of global free-market expansion. Providing close readings of the evolving New Space Opera canon and cultural histories and theoretical contexts of neoliberalism as a regnant ideology of our times, this book conceptualises a means to appreciate this thriving movement of popular literature.

Science Fiction and Philosophy

Science Fiction and Philosophy PDF Author: Susan Schneider
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118922611
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
Featuring numerous updates and enhancements, Science Fiction and Philosophy, 2nd Edition, presents a collection of readings that utilize concepts developed from science fiction to explore a variety of classic and contemporary philosophical issues. Uses science fiction to address a series of classic and contemporary philosophical issues, including many raised by recent scientific developments Explores questions relating to transhumanism, brain enhancement, time travel, the nature of the self, and the ethics of artificial intelligence Features numerous updates to the popular and highly acclaimed first edition, including new chapters addressing the cutting-edge topic of the technological singularity Draws on a broad range of science fiction’s more familiar novels, films, and TV series, including I, Robot, The Hunger Games, The Matrix, Star Trek, Blade Runner, and Brave New World Provides a gateway into classic philosophical puzzles and topics informed by the latest technology

Exploring the Limits of the Human through Science Fiction

Exploring the Limits of the Human through Science Fiction PDF Author: Gerald Alva Miller Jr.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781137262851
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Through its engagement with different kinds of texts, Exploring the Limits of the Human through Science Fiction represents a new way of approaching both science fiction and critical theory, and its uses both to question what it means to be human in digital era.