Decoding Gender in Science Fiction

This book examines the often-complex relationships between issues of gender and the environment in science fiction films and fiction. Its contributors discuss a range of texts: early apocalyptic scien

From "Frankenstein" to futuristic feminist utopias, "Decoding Gender in Science Fiction" examines the ways science fiction writers have incorporated, explored, and revised conventional notions of sexu

This fascinating study is the first to examine the history of gender and science fiction and the first to discuss science fiction pulp magazines' images of women, as well as postmodernism and feminist

Noonan explores the eclectic films of the 1960s and 1970s to determine what they reveal about the development of the science fiction film genre, but also about changes involving gender. She includes r

This book focuses on the interplay of gender, race, and their representation in American science fiction, from the nineteenth-century through to the twenty-first, and across a number of forms includin

Fantasy Girls seeks to explore as well as challenge the power and the promises of this recent media phenomenon. Such TV programming offers the exciting opportunity to rethink established gender norms,

Following scholarship on gender in science fiction, this book explores the limits of considering age as a social construction, positing that an acknowledgement of aged bodies necessarily changes the w

The medium of television both reflects and comments upon the gendered logic of the security regime in America. Gender, Science Fiction Television, and the American Security State uses science fiction

Works of science fiction and fantasy increasingly explore gender issues, feature women as central characters, and are written by women writers. This book examines women's contributions to science fic

This accessible and provocative collection of science fiction acquaints readers with cutting-edge gender controversies in moral and political philosophy. By imagining future worlds that defy our most

This volume considers Joseph Conrad’s use of multiple genres, including allusions to sensation fiction, pornography, anthropology, and Darwinian science, to respond to Victorian representations of gen

"This book explores the construction of gendered heroic identity in the series from both production and fan perspectives. The paradoxical relationships between the producers, writers and fans of the f

This accessible and provocative collection of science fiction acquaints readers with cutting-edge gender controversies in moral and political philosophy. By imagining future worlds that defy our most

In the years following 9/11, American TV developed a preoccupation with apocalypse. Science fiction and fantasy shows ranging from Firefly to Heroes, from the rebooted Battlestar Galactica to Lost, en

In the years following 9/11, American TV developed a preoccupation with apocalypse. Science fiction and fantasy shows ranging from Firefly to Heroes, from the rebooted Battlestar Galactica to Lost, en

From the global spectacle of RuPaul's Drag Race to queer characters in science fiction universes, queer figures have never been more visible and culturally significant. Drawing on a wide array of television and film examples, this work demonstrates how popular culture not only mirrors changing public attitudes toward gender identity and sexual orientation, but also actively shapes them. The search for identity and our place in the world is a timeless topic, but these essays situate that search in a question: how do non-heteronormative people find themselves, their true selves, in a patriarchal and heteronormative hegemony? The three sections in the book highlight a few possible ways of answering that question: reimagining patriarchal society and genres, altering one's identity based on new insights (or being forced to alter one's identity), and revealing the truth about one's identity that has been there all along. All of these approaches involve expanding representation with positive

The Cambridge Companion to the Essay considers the history, theory, and aesthetics of the essay from the moment it's named in the late sixteenth century to the present. What is an essay? What can the essay do or think or reveal or know that other literary forms cannot? What makes a piece of writing essayistic? How can essays bring about change? Over the course of seventeen chapters by a diverse group of scholars, The Companion reads the essay in relation to poetry, fiction, natural science, philosophy, critical theory, postcolonial and decolonial thinking, studies in race and gender, queer theory, and the history of literary criticism. This book studies the essay in its written, photographic, cinematic, and digital forms, with a special emphasis on how the essay is being reshaped and reimagined in the twenty-first century, making it a crucial resource for scholars, students, and essayists.

Deep Wheel Orcadia is, effortlessly, a first: a science-fiction verse-novel written in the Orcadian dialect, it's also the first full-length book in the Orkney language in over fifty years.Astrid is returning home from art school on Mars, looking for inspiration. Darling is fleeing a life that never fit, searching for somewhere to hide. They meet on Deep Wheel Orcadia, a distant space station struggling for survival as the pace of change threatens to leave the community behind.Deep Wheel Orcadia is a magical first: a science-fiction verse-novel written in the Orkney dialect. This unique adventure in minority language poetry comes with a parallel translation into playful and vivid English, so the reader will miss no nuance of the original. The rich and varied cast weaves a compelling, lyric and effortlessly readable story around place and belonging, work and economy, generation and gender politics, love and desire - all with the lightness of touch, fluency and musicality one might expec

Bringing together original contributions from scholars around the world, this volume traces the history of travel writing from antiquity to the Internet age. It examines travel texts of several national or linguistic traditions, introducing readers to the global contexts of the genre. From wilderness to the urban, from Nigeria to the polar regions, from mountains to rivers and the desert, this book explores some of the key places and physical features represented in travel writing. Chapters also consider the employment in travel writing of the diary, the letter, visual images, maps and poetry, as well as the relationship of travel writing to fiction, science, translation and tourism. Gender-based and ecocritical approaches are among those surveyed. Together, the thirty-seven chapters here underline the richness and complexity of this genre.

An eye-searing, mind-bending, gender-shattering epic science fiction retelling of Homer's Odyssey starting with the end of a great war in the stars and the beginning of a very long journey home for Od

Elaine Graham considers the theological significance of topics as diverse as nativity plays, science fiction, gender, cyberspace and urban regeneration. This title draws together Elaine Graham's short

Film at the Intersection of High and Mass Culture analyses the contradictions and interaction between high and low art, with particular reference to Hollywood and European cinema. Written in the essayistic speculative tradition of Walter Benjamin and Thedor Adorno, this study also includes analyses of several key films of the 1980s. Tracing the boundaries of such genres as film noir, science fiction and melodrama, it demonstrates how these genres were radically expanded by such film makers as Neil Jordan, Chris Marker and Georges Franju. This work also reflects on kitsch, the star system, racial and gender stereotypes and the nature of audience participation. While defining the conditions under which the symbiotic relationship between high and mass culture can be cross-fertilising, the study stresses their inevitably contradictory characteristics.

Alien Woman examines the construction of sex and gender in the four science-fiction films comprising the Alien saga (starring Sigourney Weaver). The Alien saga stands alone in presenting an enduring,

In The Cambridge Companion to the Victorian Novel, first published in 2000, a series of specially-commissioned essays examine the work of Charles Dickens, the Brontës, George Eliot and other canonical writers, as well as that of such writers as Olive Schreiner, Wilkie Collins and H. Rider Haggard, whose work has recently attracted new attention from scholars and students. The collection combines the literary study of the novel as a form with analysis of the material aspects of its readership and production, and a series of thematic and contextual perspectives that examine Victorian fiction in the light of social and cultural concerns relevant both to the period itself and to the direction of current literary and cultural studies. Contributors engage with topics such as industrial culture, religion and science and the broader issues of the politics of gender, sexuality and race. The Companion includes a chronology and a comprehensive guide to further reading.

Edith Wharton: Matters of Mind and Spirit, first published in 1995, makes the case for Wharton as a novelist of morals rather than of manners; a novelist who sought answers to profound spiritual and metaphysical questions. Focusing on Wharton's treatment of Anglicanism, Calvinism, Transcendentalism, and Catholicism, Carol Singley analyzes the short stories and seven novels in the light of religious and philosophical developments in Wharton's life and fiction. Singley situates Wharton in the context of turn-of-the-century science, historicism, and aestheticism, reading her religious and philosophical outlook as an evolving response to the cultural crisis of belief. She invokes the dynamics of class and gender as central to Wharton's quest, describing how the author accepted and yet transformed both the classical and Christian traditions that she inherited. By locating Wharton in the library rather than the drawing room, Matters of Mind and Spirit gives this writer her literary and intel

Scientific research involving human embryos was a major topic of public debate in Britain during the 1980s. Despite strong support from the scientific community, embryo research was initially condemned by many ordinary people as well as by special interest groups, and came close to being banned by Act of Parliament. Michael Mulkay describes the dynamics of the parliamentary struggle over the future of embryo research, focusing on such issues as: the clash between the anti-abortion and pro-research lobbies; the tactics of the Government; political ideology; the media's role; the importance of gender; religion; the impact of science fiction; the lure of medical advance; and the difficulty of maintaining ethical control. He explains how the advocates of embryo research eventually triumphed, and ends with an examination of the cultural tensions which linger after the debate.

Scientific research involving human embryos was a major topic of public debate in Britain during the 1980s. Despite strong support from the scientific community, embryo research was initially condemned by many ordinary people as well as by special interest groups, and came close to being banned by Act of Parliament. Michael Mulkay describes the dynamics of the parliamentary struggle over the future of embryo research, focusing on such issues as: the clash between the anti-abortion and pro-research lobbies; the tactics of the Government; political ideology; the media's role; the importance of gender; religion; the impact of science fiction; the lure of medical advance; and the difficulty of maintaining ethical control. He explains how the advocates of embryo research eventually triumphed, and ends with an examination of the cultural tensions which linger after the debate.

Edith Wharton: Matters of Mind and Spirit, first published in 1995, makes the case for Wharton as a novelist of morals rather than of manners; a novelist who sought answers to profound spiritual and metaphysical questions. Focusing on Wharton's treatment of Anglicanism, Calvinism, Transcendentalism, and Catholicism, Carol Singley analyzes the short stories and seven novels in the light of religious and philosophical developments in Wharton's life and fiction. Singley situates Wharton in the context of turn-of-the-century science, historicism, and aestheticism, reading her religious and philosophical outlook as an evolving response to the cultural crisis of belief. She invokes the dynamics of class and gender as central to Wharton's quest, describing how the author accepted and yet transformed both the classical and Christian traditions that she inherited. By locating Wharton in the library rather than the drawing room, Matters of Mind and Spirit gives this writer her literary and intel

In 2016, Star Trek—arguably the most popular science fiction franchise of all time—turned 50. During that time the original series and its various offshoots have created some of the genre’s most iconi