Description
Book SynopsisIn a world in which political opportunity and liberation seem far away, the genre of science fiction grows in cultural importance and popularity. The contributors to this collection are political and social theorists from a range of disciplines who use science fiction as inspiration for new theories and examples of speculative politics. In dystopian governments, they find locations and forms of resistance. Representations of Political Resistance and Emancipation in Science Fiction explores a range of political and social theoretical concerns for the twenty-first century. Contributors analyze themes of post-humanism, resistance, agency, political community making, and ethics and politics during the Anthropocene.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Future is Unwritten: Political Agency and Radical Change in a Science Fiction”
Judith Grant and Sean Parson
Part I: Collapse and Rebuilding
Chapter One: Dystopia, Apocalypse, and Other Things to Look Forward to: Reading for Radical Hope in the Fiction of Fear
Matthew Cole
Chapter Two: Mirror, Mirror: The Tragic Vision of Star TrekDiscovery
Libby Barringer
Chapter Three: Beginning Again: Jericho, Revolution, and Catastrophic Originalism
Ira Allen
Part II: Resistance and Survival
Chapter Four: “We Survived You”: Resisting Eugenic Imaginaries through Feminist Speculative Fiction
Jess Whatcott
Chapter Five: Wakanda Forever: Black Panther in Black Political Thought
Deborah Thompson
Chapter Six: A Politics of Drowning: Theorizing Action in the Anthropocene through JG Ballard’s The Drowned World
Chase Hobbs-Morgan
Part III: Reconstructing Our World: Space and Place
Chapter Seven: The Ambiguities of Critical Desire: Utopia and Heterotopia in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and Samuel R. Delany’s Trouble on Triton
Michael Lipscomb
Chapter Eight: Politicizing Cities in China Miéville’s Speculative Fiction
Andrew Uzendoski and Caleb Gallemore
Chapter Nine: Stranger than Fiction: Silicon Valley and the Politics of Space Colonization
Emily Ray
Part IV: Reconstructing Ourselves: Identity and Agency
Chapter Ten: A Future is Female: Loving Animals and Scientific Romance
Claire E. Rasmussen
Chapter Eleven: Finding Liberation and Futurity in the Sentient Spaceships of Leckie, Chambers, and Okorafor
Laurie Ringer
Chapter Twelve: What Do We Lose When We Become Posthuman?: Paolo Bacigalupi’s “The People of Sand and Slag” and the Politics of Recognition
Michael Uhall
