基本説明
Comprising 13 essays by noted scholars and writers, the collection provides an overview of the state of contemporary science fiction and the diversity of ways in which science fiction comments upon contemporary cultural, political, and technological transformations.
Full Description
Edging into the Future explores contemporary science fiction literature and media as imaginative expressions of an already science-fictional present and as literal descriptions of postmodern culture. Thirteen noted scholars and writers, including Brian Attebery, Gwyneth Jones, and Gary K. Wolfe, provide an overview of the state of contemporary science fiction and emphasize the diversity of ways in which science fiction as a narrative mode and as a social discourse comments upon contemporary cultural, political, and technological transformations.As the essays in Edging into the Future demonstrate, science fiction is both symptomatic of cultural disruption and change and an expression of our desire to give shape and meaning to that change. These essays examine a variety of science fiction forms, from literature to rock 'n' roll, and from film to anime and hypermedia, exploring such topics as generic transformation, the relationship of the body to technology, gender and sexuality, the construction of both individual and communal subjects, and the contemporary sense of an ending. They point to the intriguing directions in which science fiction continues to develop, while demonstrating that the challenge for the genre today is less to extrapolate a distant future than to keep up with a permanently mutable present in which genres, subjects, bodies, communities, and futures are all in flux.The essays in this collection, representing a multiplicity of perspectives, are bound together by their common focus on science fiction literature and media as forms of cultural expression uniquely suited to address the pressures and promises of contemporary culture.
Contents
IIntroductionVeronica Hollinger and Joan GordonPART ONE: GENRE IMPLOSION1. Evaporating Genre: Strategies of Dissolution in the Postmodern Fantastic-Gary K. Wolfe2. Omniphage: Rock 'n' Roll and Avant-Pop Science Fiction-Lance Olsen3. Synthespians, Virtual Humans, and Hypermedia: Emerging Contours of Post-Sf-Film-Brooks LandonPART TWO: IMPLODED SUBJECTS AND REINSCRIPTED BODIES4. Staying with the Body: Narratives of the Posthuman in Contemporary Science Fiction-Jenny Wolmark5. "But Aren't Those Just ... You Know, Metaphors?": Postmodern Figuration in the Science Fiction of James Morrow and Gwyneth Jones-Brian Attebery6. Sex/uality and the Figure of the Hermaphrodite in Science Fiction; or, The Revenge of Herculine Barbin-Wendy Pearson7. Mutant Youth: Posthuman Fantasies and High-Tech Consumption in 1990s Science Fiction-Rob Latham8. "Going Postal": Rage, Science Fiction, and the Ends of the American Subject-Roger LuckhurstPART THREE: REIMAGINED APOCALYPSES AND EXPLODED COMMUNITIES9. Apocalypse Coma-Veronica Hollinger10. Kairos: The Enchanted Loom-Gwyneth Jones11. Dead Letters and Their Inheritors: Ecospasmic Crashes and the Post-Mortal Condition in Brian Stableford's Histories of the Future-Brian Stableford12. Utopia, Genocide, and the Other: Science Fiction Explores the Truly MonstrousJoan Gordon13. Dis-Imagined Communities: Science Fiction and the Future of Nations-Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr.NotesBibliographyList of ContributorsIndexAcknowledgments
