Browsing by Subject "science fiction"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Cyborg: Posthuman Feminism and Biopower in Peninsular Women's Science Fiction
    (2020-08) Hanson, Marit
    This study examines works of women’s science fiction literature from Spain produced in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: Lágrimas en la lluvia and El peso del corazón, by Rosa Montero; Consecuencias naturales, by Elia Barceló; “Informe de aprendizaje,” by Sofía Rhei; “La plaga,” by Felicidad Martínez; “Casas Rojas,” by Nieves Delgado; and “Yo, cuqui,” by Laura López Alfranca. Academic study on Spanish science fiction is scant, and even more so in the case of Spanish women’s science fiction. Using theories of the posthuman, feminism, and biopower, this study analyzes how Spanish women’s science fiction actively disrupts hierarchical binaries and boundaries prevalent in the genre (male/female, nature/culture, organic/inorganic, human/nonhuman). In doing so, the narratives destabilize and resist heteropatriarchal structures that rely upon these binaries, such as the masculinist portrayals of female and nonbinary bodies, capitalist neoliberal environmental antagonism, and emphasis of dominance and alterity over solidarity and alliance work with Othered subjects—all of which find direct corollaries in social issues of contemporary Spain. At the same time—and in lieu of these binaries—these texts propose and affirm developing a state of constant becoming and evolution based on a rhizomatic relationality among different subjectivities.
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    Darwin and the Digital Body: Evolution, Posthumanism, and Imaginative Spaces of Possibility
    (2012-05-30) Fierke, Jennifer
    Talking about embodiment is political, whether the discussion is about “race,” gender, “ability,” size or body modification. Despite significant leaps forward in equity during the twentieth century, beings continue to be constrained—practically, intellectually, emotionally, sexually, and expressively—because of how we imagine bodies. This project brings embodiment into relief by focusing on two seemingly disparate theories: Victorian evolutionary theory and posthumanism. Both are explored via the dual lenses of nineteenth-century speculative fiction and works of fantastic digital media, providing theoretical and cultural frameworks for challenging dominant paradigms of embodiment.
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    Enabling Space Cadets: Quality Science Fiction for Children under 12 Years Old
    (2017-05) Midkiff, Emily
    In this dissertation, I challenge the dominant assumptions in science fiction and children’s literature criticism: that young children’s science fiction is exclusively poor quality, unwelcoming to girls, and lacking in diversity. Most of all, I refute the bias that children do not or cannot read science fiction before they reach 12 years of age. My results offer strong evidence in favor of the genre’s quality and potential. After developing a method for recognizing high quality science fiction for children under 12 that hinges on the power of pictures to scaffold an introduction to the genre, I used this method on over 200 books. I discovered more excellent science fiction picturebooks, comic books, graphic novels, and early readers than anticipated. In addition, I use STEM strategies and the literary theories of feminist science fiction, Afrofuturism, Indigenous Futurism, and Latin@futurism to examine the books for girl-friendliness and diversity. This method revealed that exemplar books are currently in circulation and also offered direction for future improvement of children’s science fiction and children’s literature in general. Other results demonstrate that children under 12 can and do read science fiction, though adult opinions of the genre require more attention. The children participating in the study show high competency in deciphering illustrations and comprehending complex science fiction picturebooks, while library circulation analysis demonstrates that science fiction has a surprisingly high and statistically significant readership among children in 5th grade and below. Meanwhile, the survey data from librarians and teachers indicates that they generally value the genre and include it in their classrooms and libraries, but will avoid using these books in large group settings due to several assumptions about their young readers. Unlike previous literary criticism implies, this case study describes a high quality, vibrant genre that young children read and understand. Since more work is needed to improve adult comfort with this genre in classrooms and libraries, this study opens a future arena for scholarship. Additionally, the research design demonstrates the benefits of merging literary analysis with interdisciplinary methods: a future for children’s literature studies overall.
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    Imagining Bodies: Technological Visions of Displaced Minds in French Speculative Fiction
    (2019-05) Mitchell, Lia
    The twenty-first century has seen a dramatic shift in visual culture resulting from the expansion of digital technology, a shift that is still in progress today. A similarly seismic shift occurred in the mid-nineteenth century, with the introduction of photography, and around the fin-de-siècle, with the emergence of cinema. A number of scholars (including Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Paul Virilio, Jonathan Crary, Friedrich Kittler, and Vivian Sobchack) have argued that technological changes in visual media constitute new ways of seeing and consequently new ways of being in the world. Imagining Bodies examines the ways that these changes in visual culture emerge in representations of the body and of vision in French speculative fiction from around the time of the Third Republic. In particular, this thesis discusses visual paradigms associated with photography and film around the time of their emergence, and seeks reflections and echoes of those paradigms in textual descriptions of bodily experience. Such descriptions are especially suggestive in fictional works that problematize the relationship between body and mind, either by imagining a mind transposed or transplanted into a new and strange body, or imagining what lies beyond the limits of human sensory perception by removing minds from bodies altogether. By recognizing the ways that visual technology informs and structures our understanding of our world and our selves, we can better recognize the effects of new visual technology and their importance for our contemporary period.