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Erhart, Erin Michelle. "England's Dreaming| The Rise and Fall of Science Fiction, 1871-1874." Thesis, Brandeis University, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10103436.
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<p> This dissertation grows out of a conversation between two fields—those of Victorian Literature and Science Fiction (SF). I began this project with a realization that there was a productive overlap between SF and Victorian Studies. In my initial engagement with SF, I was frustrated by the limitations of the field, and by the way that scholars were misreading the 19<sup>th </sup> century, utilizing broad generalizations about the function of Empire, the subject, technology, and the social, where close readings would have been more productive. Victorian studies supplied a critical and theoretical basis for the interrogation of these topics, and SF gave my reading of the nineteenth century an appreciation for the dynamic nature of the mechanism, and a useful jumping-off point for conversations around futurity, utopia, and the Other. Together, these two fields created a symbiotic theoretical framework that informs the progression of the dissertation.</p><p> In this project, I am shifting the grounds of engagement with early SF between two main terms; my aim is to question the establishment of “cognitive estrangement” as the seat the power in SF studies and supplant it with an emphasis on the “novum”. While both terms are indebted to Darko Suvin, I argue that the fixation on cognitive estrangement has blurred the lines of the genre of SF in nonproductive ways, and has needlessly complicated an already complex field. This dissertation is a deep engagement with the SF novels of 1871-2 to establish how the genre was defining itself from the very beginning, and looks to examine how a close-reading of early SF can inform our engagement with the field. Chapter one treats the work of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s <i> The Coming Race</i> (1871), chapter two examines Sir George Chesney’s <i> The Battle of Dorking</i> (1871), chapter three engages with Samuel Butler’s <i> Erewhon,</i> and chapter four is an examination of the relationship between the first three novels and Robert Ellis Dudgeon’s <i>Colymbia</i> (1873) and <i>A Voice from Another World</i> (1874) by Wladyslaw Somerville Lach-Szurma (W.S.L.S).</p><p> There are four fundamental concerns. The first is that the near simultaneous publication of Chesney, Lytton, and Butler signaled the emergence of SF as a genre, rather than as the isolated texts that had existed prior to this moment. The clustering of the novels of 1871-2 marks the transition of SF concerns from singular outlier events to a generic movement. The second claim is that the “novum”, one of the key aspects of a SF novel, is not just a material component in the text, but is a kind of logic that undergirds these novels. While the novum is often thought of as “the strange thing in a strange world”, I lock onto the early language of Suvin and critics such as Patricia Kerslake and John Rieder to suggest that it is, instead, a cognitive logic that is experimented on within the narrative of the novel. The third claim is fundamentally tied to the second: this foundation logic of the text is technological or mechanical. It is this connection of cognitive logic and technology and the mechanism that situates the novum as a technologic that is experimented on or evolved within the body of an SF novel, and is important because it helps us lock onto how SF is a product of the industrial age. In the break that occurs in 1871, this form of the novum plays a critical role in the development and identification of SF as a genre, and helps to distinguish texts with scientific themes (what I am calling <i>scientific fictions)</i> from those featuring a fundamental technologic that is intrinsic to the development and deployment of the narrative (what will come to be called <i>science fiction).</i></p><p> The fourth and final claim is a product of the function and nature of the novum: and is that SF as a genre not only helps to understand technology and culture, but actively works to define the relationship between the two. Technology is registered as an important influence on culture, and culture shapes the future of technology. This genre is ultimately growing out of the rise of the scientific method, and the logic of the texts reflects that experimental paradigm. The logic of SF is one that experiments with the future, testing the implications of the known world against the possibilities of time, and in doing so, defining the terms of engagement with what the future might bring. </p>
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Roach, Katherine. "Between magic and reason : science in 19th century popular fiction." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2011. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13687/.
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The scientist in fiction is much maligned. The mad, bad scientist has framed much of the debate about literary representations of science and with good reason since he is a towering icon of popular culture. Yet, I will propose that an equally preeminent figure provides an alternative model of science in fiction. This is the detective. Links between developing scientific disciplines and the emerging genre of detective fiction have been well described to date. Yet the history of the detective as scientific icon has not been told, particularly not as it engages with the history of the mad scientist. These two paragons of modem culture developed from a groundswell of gothic narrative and imagery that emerged in the late 18th century and continued to entertain and challenge audiences throughout the 19th century, as they still do to this day. My aim is to recover some of the complexity of past public images of science, and the understandings that such icons relate to, as they develop and meander through a variety of 19th century fictions. In a series of time slices I relate these figures, their iconography and narratives, to contemporary debates about science and follow through the elements that each generation retains, remoulds and claims for their own time. Ultimately, I hope to show that an panalysis of the mad scientist alongside other fictional scientific figures provides a far more nuanced picture of potential meanings, than the negative and fearful response that he is often assumed to represent. This is significant because both these icons are current in popular culture today and as such are part and parcel of the present pool of cultural resources that provides tools for thinking about science and society in the 21st century.
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McDonald, Bonny. "Buried Alive: Hard Science Fiction Since the Golden Age." TopSCHOLAR®, 2005. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/461.
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A substantial body of science fiction authors, critics and fans appreciate the literary attention the New Wave of the '60s and '70s brought to the genre of science fiction, but regret the seemingly lasting move away from the hard science classics of the '50s and before. They argue that "the hard stuff' is at the very heart of sf and that its future—still on the path set by the New Wave—is ostensibly a dead end. Many important critics along with hundreds of sf fan websites display this fatalistic concern, asking over and over "Is hard science fiction dead?" The answer is no. These reactionaries suffer from a serious case of the Good Old Days Syndrome (not to mention the Good Old Boys Syndrome). A close look at the state of the genre reveals that hard sf is not only alive and well but also that contemporary hard sf is more in line with its critics' definition of hard sf than the very stories they cite as exemplars of it. Contrary to the accusations of noted sf critics, it may well be that a new golden age of sf is dawning, one with an even truer scientific core as well as a commitment to literary quality. This thesis will expose the curious contradiction between the hard and soft / old and new sf. The introduction will examine the definition of hard sf and declarations of its unfortunate demise. Each of three chapters will compare two stories—one from sf s Golden Age and another after the supposed death of the genre. In each, I will show how classic examples of hard sf regularly fail to meet the objective, scientific criteria they purport to uphold and how contemporary stories—even while focusing (to varying degrees) on the political and personal—better espouse the principles of hard sf. Ultimately, it seems that those who descry hard sf s death miss not the technical aspects of hard sf that, even by their definition, distinguish it from softer sf, but the traditional Golden Age values of male dominance, imperialism, and anti-emotionalism. Newer stories' feminism and redefinitions of progress blind conventional readers to their truly hard-core, science-based foundations. The conclusion will consider what hard sf s paradigm shifts mean in terms of our evolving relationship to science. Specifically, in our technological age, science is not merely a field that studies how things work, but a field that can help us to illuminate and interpret our place in the universe. Ultimately, hard science fiction is not dead, it's just doing something different from what it used to.
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Alsulami, Mabrouk. "Science Fiction Elements in Gothic Novels." DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, 2016. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/cauetds/47.
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This thesis explores elements of science fiction in three gothic novels, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Robert Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It begins by explicating the important tropes of science fiction and progresses with a discussion that establishes a connection between three gothic novels and the science fiction genre. This thesis argues that the aforementioned novels express characters’ fear of technology and offer an analysis of human nature that is literarily futuristic. In this view, each of the aforementioned writers uses extreme events in their works to demonstrate that science can contribute to humanity’s understanding of itself. In these works, readers encounter characters who offer commentary on the darker side of the human experience.
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Strasen, Christian T. "A Postcard From the Future| Technology, Desire, and Myth in Contemporary Science Fiction." Thesis, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10013970.
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<p> This thesis argues that modern, post-apocalyptic science fiction functions as a projected analysis of the author’s contemporary world. This insight is used to chart the historical trajectory of the spread of automaticity, the reduction of objects, and the loss of historical memory. The Introduction introduces readers to both the literary and critical histories of science fiction, contextualizing the worlds that George R. Stewart, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Margaret Atwood write in. Chapter One analyzes George R. Stewart’s 1949 novel Earth Abides, using it to demonstrate how the growing trend of automaticity leads toward a reduction of physical objects, and a misunderstanding of politics. Chapter Two uses Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1973 novel The Lathe of Heaven to reveal an acceleration of automaticity and reduction of objects though the manipulation of human desire. This, in turn, leads to a loss of historical memory via Herbert Marcuse’s concept of repressive desublimation. Chapter Three charts the effects that the advent of the virtual has had on automaticity and the manipulation of human desire through an engagement with Margaret Atwood’s 2003 novel Oryx and Crake.</p>
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Gevers, Nicholas David. "Mirrors of the past : versions of history in science fiction and fantasy." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/10511.
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The primary argument of this Thesis is that Science Fiction (SF) is a form of Historical Fiction, one which speculatively appropriates elements of the past in fulfilment of the ideological expectations of its genre readership. Chapter One presents this definition, reconciling it with some earlier definitions of SF and justifying it by means of a comparison between SF and the Historical Novel. Chapter One also identifies SF's three modes of historical appropriation (historical extension, imitation and modification) and the forms of fictive History these construct, including Future History and Alternate History; theories of history, and SF's own ideological changes over time, have helped shape the genre's varied borrowings from the past. Some works of Historical Fantasy share the characteristics of SF set out in Chapter One. The remaining Chapters analyse the textual products of SF's imitation and modification of history, i.e. Future and Alternate Histories. Chapter Two discusses various Future Histories completed or at least commenced before 1960, demonstrating their consistent optimism, their celebration of Science and of heroic individualism, and their tendency to resolve the cyclical pattern of history through an ideal linear simplification or 'theodicy'. Chapter Three shows the much greater ideological and technical diversity of Future Histories after 1960, their division into competing traditional (Libertarian), Posthistoric (pessimistic), and critical utopian categories, an indication of SF's increasing complexity and fragmentation.
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Gevers, Nicholas David. "A study of the major science fiction works of Gene Wolfe." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21971.
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This thesis examines three major works by the American Science Fiction and Fantasy writer Gene Wolfe (Eugene Rodman Wolfe, 1931-). The central argument of this thesis is that in The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972), the 'New Sun' cycle of novels (1980- 1987), and Soldier of the Mist (1986), Wolfe presents the human desire for knowledge of the Self and of God and the near-impossibility of attaining this knowledge. Wolfe expresses obstacles to knowledge and fulfilment in his created fictional worlds, in the characters of his protagonists, and in the complicated narrative structures that distinguish all three texts. By converting the stable and reassuring world of conventional Science Fiction into a realm of uncertainty, ambiguity, and spiritual and cognitive confusion, Wolfe radically subverts the genre and exposes it to a new subtlety and flexibility.
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Brodie, Jessica J. "Children in science fiction utopias: feminism's blueprint for change." FIU Digital Commons, 1999. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/2425.
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The purpose of this thesis was to examine the treatment and portrayal of children in science fiction utopian literature and determine whether this effectively indicated the writers’ feminist visions for social change. A feminist theoretical perspective and critical interpretation of several of the genre’s canon, Sheri Tepper’s The Gate to Women’s Country, Suzy McKee Chamas’s Motherlines, Sally Miller Gearhart’s The Wanderground, Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis series, were used as research methodologies.
The findings revealed that children communicate feminist prescriptions for change in three ways: children as the literal, biological future, the link between two opposing societies, or the explanation for the difficult philosophies and structural elements of the societies. As this subject has been an unexplored area of criticism, it is recommended that critics begin to examine this treatment of children to more easily understand the writers’ social visions and effect their blueprints for change.
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Newns, Lucinda. "At home in the metropole : gender and domesticity in contemporary migration fiction." Thesis, London Metropolitan University, 2014. http://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/698/.
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This thesis looks at a selection of novels by diasporic writers which engage significantly with the domestic sphere and its associated practices in their narratives of migration to Britain from postcolonial spaces. Employing a feminist postcolonial approach to works by Buchi Emecheta, Monica Ali, Andrea Levy, Abdulrazak Gurnah and Leila Aboulela, this thesis challenges dominant readings of migration fiction that have been shaped by postmodern and diasporic frameworks of displacement and rupture, emphasising instead placement, dwelling and (re)rooting as important features of the migratory process. It also aims to re-centre the domestic, private and ‘everyday’ in conceptions of home in current debates about migration, while also generating a productive theorisation of 'home' which synthesises its feminist and postcolonial critiques. My approach is about reading more than the allegorical into literary representations of home-spaces, as I trace the interdependence of public and private, domestic and political, across both form and content in the novels covered. Through my analysis of individual texts, I show how writers draw on the colonial and postcolonial politics of home and domesticity as discursive resources in their narratives of cross-cultural encounter, challenging the devaluation of the private sphere as a static, unproductive and uncreative space. I unpack how these texts engage with the domestic as a material space of inspiration, but also as a political space constructed by histories of colonialism and immigration, as well as by policy and academic scholarship, showing how they respond to and subvert these discourses. Through their engagement with familiar tropes of house and home, many of these works challenge representations of migrant women as passive recipients and reproducers of an externally defined ‘culture’. Instead, I argue, they offer alternative interior geographies which re-map both the British domestic space and that of the home-culture, reframing the home as an important carrier of meaning but one that is constantly in flux, remaking itself according to the needs and desires of those who dwell within its walls.
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Abberley, William Harrison. "Language under the microscope : science and philology in English fiction 1850-1914." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10036/4472.
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This study explores how Anglophone fiction from the mid-Victorian period to the outbreak of the First World War acted as an imaginative testing-ground for theories of the evolution of language. Debates about the past development and the future of language ranged beyond the scope of empirical data and into speculative narrative. Fiction offered to realize such narratives in detail, building imaginative worlds out of different theories of language evolution. In the process, it also often tested these theories, exposing their contradictions. The lack of clear boundaries between nature and culture in language studies of the period enabled fictions of language evolution to explore questions to which contemporary researchers have returned. To what extent is communication instinctive or conventional? How do social and biological factors interact in the production of meaning? The study traces two opposing tendencies of thought on language evolution, naming them language ‘progressivism’ and ‘vitalism’. Progressivism imagined speakers evolving away from involuntary, instinctive vocalizations to extert rational control over their discourse with mechanical precision. By contrast, language vitalism posited a mysterious, natural power in words which had weakened and fragmented with the rise of writing and industrial society. Certain genres of fiction lent themselves to exploration of these ideas, with utopian tales seeking to envision the end-goals of progressive theory. Representations of primitive language in imperial and prehistoric romances also promoted progressivism by depicting the instinctive, irrational speech from which ‘civilization’ was imagined as advancing away. Conversely, much historical and invasion fiction idealized a linguistic past when speech had expressed natural truth, and the authentic folk origins of its speakers. Both progressivism and vitalism were undermined through the late nineteenth century by developments in biology, which challenged claims of underlying stability in nature or purpose in change. Simultaneously, philologists increasingly argued that meaning was conventional, attacking models of semantic progress and degradation. In this context, a number of authors reconceptualized language in their fiction as a mixture of instinct and convention. These imaginative explorations of the borderlands between the social and biological in communication prefigured many of the concerns of twenty-first-century biosemiotics.
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Ejsmund, Arnika Nora. ""Light is the left hand of darkness" : breaking away from invalid dichotomies in science fiction." Diss., Pretoria : [s.n.], 2002. http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-06172005-111926.
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Raulerson, Joshua Thomas. "Singularities: technoculture, transhumanism, and science fiction in the 21st Century." Diss., University of Iowa, 2010. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2968.
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A spectre is haunting contemporary technoculture: the spectre of Singularity. Ten years into a century thus far characterized chiefly by the catastrophic failure of global economic and political systems, deepening ecological anxieties, and slow-motion social crisis, the only sector of our collective cultural myth of Progress still vibrantly intact is the technological - a project which, in vivid contrast to the systemic failure that seemingly prevails at nearly every other level, continues to charge forward at breakneck speed. Since the late twentieth century, prompted by the all-but-exponential growth of machine intelligence and global information networks, and by the still largely obscure but increasingly profound-seeming implications of emerging nanotechnology, futurists and fabulists alike have postulated an imminent historical threshold whereupon the nature of human existence will be radically and irrevocably transformed in a sudden explosion of technological development. This moment of transcendence, it is supposed, is at most only a few years off; indeed, some say, it may have already begun. The "Singularity" - a term coined in 1986 by the mathematician and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, and subsequently adopted throughout technocultural discourse - is at present the primary site of interpenetration between technoscientific and science-fictional figurations of the future, an area in which the longstanding binary distinctions between science and SF, and between present and future, are rapidly dissolving. As much as the Singularity thesis implies a total reorganization of society and of the self - which posthumanist cultural studies and cyborg theory have already begun mapping - it also poses a daunting existential challenge to the enterprise of SF itself, to the extent that the Singularity imposes what Vinge has described as "an opaque wall across the future," an impenetrable cognitive obstacle beyond which the extrapolative imagination cannot glimpse. For a genre long defined by its efforts to assert, through the narrative technique of extrapolation, a meaningful continuity between present and future, the Singularity presents a thorny problem indeed, demanding both a reevaluation of SF's conception of and orientation toward the future, and a new narrative model capable of grappling with the alien and often paradoxical complexity of the postsingular.
This study is an inquiry into the properties and problematics of Singularity across fictional and nonfictional discourses, and as such it operates on two levels. Reading Singularitarian literature against a broadly articulated context of fringe-science and transhumanist movements, consumer culture, political and economic theory, and related areas of contemporary cyber- and technoculture, I examine how the metaphor of Singularity structures and signifies the aspirations and anxieties of late-twentieth and early twenty-first century technocivilization. As a project of literary criticism specifically, the study works to identify and theorize a grouping of texts that is emerging from cyberpunk and postcyberpunk tendencies in contemporary SF, organized around the premises of Singularity and the posthuman, and classifiable primarily in terms of an attempt to mount a response to the formal and conceptual problems Vinge has identified. Primary readings are drawn from a wide-ranging selection of twentieth- and twenty-first-century technocultural fiction, with emphasis on SF works by Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker, and William Gibson.
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Sauble-Otto, Lorie Gwen. "Writing in subversive space: Language and the body in feminist science fiction in French and English." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/279786.
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This dissertation examines the themes of subversive language and representations of the body in an eclectic selection of feminist science fiction texts in French and English from a French materialist feminist point of view. The goal of this project is to bring together the theories of French materialist feminism and the theories and fictions of feminist science fiction. Chapter One of this dissertation seeks to clarify the main concepts that form the ideological core of French materialist feminism. Theoretical writings by Monique Wittig, Christine Delphy, Colette Guillaumin, Nicole-Claude Mathieu provide the methodological base for an analysis of the oppression of women. Works by American author Suzy McKee Charnas and Quebecois author Elisabeth Vonarburg provide fictional representations of what Wittig calls "the category of sex". Imagery that destabilizes our notions about sex is studied in Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve. French materialist feminism maintains that the oppression of women consists of an economical exploitation and a physical appropriation. The second chapter of this dissertation looks at images of women working and images of (re)production in science fiction by Quebecois authors Esher Rochon, Louky Bersianik, Elisabeth Vonarburg, and American authors Ursula Le Guin, Joanna Russ, Marge Piercy, James Tiptree, Jr., Suzy McKee Charnas and Octavia Butler. The third chapter examines the theme of justified anger, as expressed in feminist science fiction, when women become aware of their own oppression. In addition to authors already mentioned above, I take examples from works in English by Kit Reed & Suzette Haden Elgin, and in French, by Marie Darrieussecq, Joelle Wintrebert and Jacqueline Harpman. Chapter Four seeks to show the importance of the act of writing and producing a text as a recurring theme in feminist science fiction. Highlighted examples from works by many authors including Elisabeth Vonarburg and Suzette Haden Elgin are representational of what Wittig calls "the mark of gender", the use of pronouns, marked speech and linguistic experimentation and invention.
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Leroux, Julie. ""Shocking his readers out of their complacence": gothic and fantasy tropes in H.G. Wells' «fin-de siècle» science fiction novels." Thesis, McGill University, 2011. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=97160.
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The main goal of this thesis is to identify Gothic and fantasy tropes in four fin-de-siècle novels by H.G. Wells – The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon and The Food of the Gods – and to examine their rhetorical effects within the framework of science fiction. More precisely, my project was inspired by Kelly Hurley's analysis of the thematic similarities shared by the science fiction and Gothic genres during the fin-de-siècle, and by Darko Suvin's definitions of science fiction and of the Gothic as being rhetorically antithetical. Through an analysis of how the two thematically compatible but rhetorically antithetical genres interact in the novels, I evaluate the potential responses that could be expected from readers, and compare these responses to the contemporary reception of the work. My research is based on the idea that Wells' novels promote a social message based on Darwinian theory and socialism, and that he uses the combination of SF and the Gothic in order to lead his complacent readers to intellectual conclusions by first drawing their attention through shock and terror. This study will seek to determine whether the author's use of the Gothic ultimately benefits the works by enhancing their social message, or if it results in the contrary effect.<br>Ce mémoire vise à identifier les tropes gothiques et fantaisistes dans quatre romans de la fin-de-siècle par H.G. Wells – The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The First Men in the Moon et The Food of the Gods – et d'examiner leur effet dans ces romans de science fiction au niveau rhétorique. Plus précisément, ce projet fut inspiré par l'analyse qu'a faite Kelly Hurley des ressemblances thématiques entre la science fiction et le gothique au tournant du vingtième siècle, et par l'argument de Darko Suvin selon lequel la science fiction et le gothique seraient antithétiques au niveau rhétorique. À travers une analyse de l'interaction entre ces deux genres compatibles au niveau thématique, mais théoriquement incompatibles au niveau rhétorique, j'évalue les réponses potentielles que l'on peut attendre des lecteurs de ces romans, et je compare ces réponses théoriquement possibles aux la réception contemporaine réelle de ces œuvres. Ma recherche repose sur l'idée que Wells tentait de promouvoir dans ses romans une réflexion sociale basée sur les théories darwiniennes et sur le socialisme, et qu'il utilisait la combinaison de la science fiction et du gothique afin de mener ses lecteurs vers des conclusions intellectuelles par le biais d'un éveil brusque causé par le choc et la terreur. Cette étude tente de déterminer si l'utilisation du gothique faite par l'auteur mène vraiment ses lecteurs à porter davantage attention aux thèmes contenus dans les romans, ou si, au contraire, ces tropes ne font qu'engendrer une réponse émotive chez le lecteur.
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Chern, Joanne. "Restoring, Rewriting, Reimagining: Asian American Science Fiction Writers and the Time Travel Narrative." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2014. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/449.
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Asian American literature has continued to evolve since the emergence of first generation Asian American writers in 1975. Authors have continued to interact not only with Asian American content, but also with different forms to express that content – one of these forms is genre writing. Genre writing allows Asian American writers to interact with genre conventions, using them to inform Asian American tropes and vice versa. This thesis focuses on the genre of science fiction, specifically in the subgenre of time travel. Using three literary case studies – Ken Liu’s “The Man Who Ended History,” Charles Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” – this thesis seeks to explore the ways in which different Asian American writers have interacted with the genre, using it to retell Asian American narratives in new ways. “The Man Who Ended History” explores the use of time travel in restoring lost or silenced historical narratives, and the implications of that usage; How to Live Safely is a clever rewriting of the immigrant narrative, which embeds the story within the conventions of a science fictional universe; “Story of Your Life” presents a reimagining of alterity, and investigates how we might interact with the alien in a globalized world. Ultimately, all three stories, though quite different, express Asian American concerns in new and interesting ways; they may point to ways that Asian American writers can continue to write and rewrite Asian American narratives, branching out into new genres and affecting those genres in turn.
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Keister, Patricia Lynn. "The Right Hand of Light: Dark and Light Imagery in the Science Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin." TopSCHOLAR®, 1993. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1754.
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Ursula K. Le Guin uses dark and light imagery to emphasize her theme of dynamic equilibrium. This theme can be found throughout her work; the novels discussed are The Left Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven, The Dispossessed, and The Beginning Place. In each novel, Le Guin focuses on a different aspect of dynamic equilibrium. The themes are respectively, gender identity, chaos and order, and the individual versus the community. The final novel, The Beginning Place, unites and sums up all three themes. In each novel, one or more main characters suffers from imbalance that reflects the theme of the novel. Throughout the course of the novel, the character learns to find balance, thus resolving the issues that Le Guin discusses.
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Franks, Jamie N. "Becoming Other: Virtual Realities in Contemporary Science Fiction." FIU Digital Commons, 2015. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/1908.
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The purpose of this thesis was to explore the boundary between human and other created by virtual worlds in contemporary science fiction novels. After a close reading of the three novels: Surface Detail, Existence, and Lady of Mazes, and the application of contemporary literary theories, the boundary presented itself and led to the discovery of where the human becomes other. The human becomes other when it becomes lost to the virtual world and no longer exists or interacts with material reality. Each of the primary texts exhibits both virtual reality and humanity in different ways, and each is explored to find where humanity falls apart. Overall, when these theories are applied to real life there is no real way to avoid the potential for fully immersive virtual worlds, but there are ways to avoid their alienating effects.
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Hall, Karen Peta. "Discovering the lost race story : writing science fiction, writing temporality." University of Western Australia. English and Cultural Studies Discipline Group, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0216.
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Genres are constituted, implicitly and explicitly, through their construction of the past. Genres continually reconstitute themselves, as authors, producers and, most importantly, readers situate texts in relation to one another; each text implies a reader who will locate the text on a spectrum of previously developed generic characteristics. Though science fiction appears to be a genre concerned with the future, I argue that the persistent presence of lost race stories where the contemporary world and groups of people thought to exist only in the past intersect in science fiction demonstrates that the past is crucial in the operation of the genre. By tracing the origins and evolution of the lost race story from late nineteenth-century novels through the early twentieth-century American pulp science fiction magazines to novel-length narratives, and narrative series, at the end of the twentieth century, this thesis shows how the consistent presence, and varied uses, of lost race stories in science fiction complicates previous critical narratives of the history and definitions of science fiction.
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Sebree, Adrien E. "Living Fairy Tales: Science Fiction and Fantasy's Visionary Retellings of "Beauty and the Beast"." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2011. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/204.
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This thesis explores how science fiction and fantasy retellings of the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" bring visionary insights to the fairy tale. Stories such as Tanith Lee's science fiction novella "Beauty" and Mercedes Lackey's fantasy novel The Fire Rose constitute living and developing incarnations of "Beauty and the Beast." To better explore the visionary leaps made by these stories, they are placed in contrast with one of the original recordings of the story by Madame Marie Le Prince de Beaumont and the 1991 Disney film version, Beauty and the Beast.
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Stevens, D. R. "The novelist as engineer a thesis on credible engineering components of fiction novels (supplemented by an "engineering" fiction novel) /." View thesis, 2007. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/39903.
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Thesis (M. Eng. (Hons.)) -- University of Western Sydney, 2007.<br>A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney, College of Health and Science, School of Engineering, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering (Hons.). Includes bibliographical references.
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Williams, Katlyn E. "American magic: authorship and politics in the new American literary genre fiction." Diss., University of Iowa, 2018. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6664.
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This project examines how a subset of contemporary American literary cross-genre authors use popular forms within their fiction to comment on, interact with, and critique the possibilities of formula fiction and modern fan communities. I argue that the historic feminization of the popular (set against the stoicism of realism), combined with the startlingly masculine histories of popular genres like science fiction and fantasy, has resulted in distinct differences in the style and aims of male and female authors utilizing hybrid forms. The writers comprising the focus of this study, Junot Díaz, Michael Chabon, Margaret Atwood, and Kelly Link, create a range of competing modes of genre mixing that clarify the lingering effects of popular genre’s marginalization by the literary elite and the academy.
The chapters of this project move through these modes by examining, respectively, toxic nerd fantasies and fandoms, the impact of fan fiction and its universalizing impulse, the rise of “speculative fiction,” and the role of domestic fabulism in reimagining the limited frameworks of realism and celebrating the possibilities of mass tropes and forms. Each of these chapters interrogates the author’s impact on the developing field of the new American literary genre fiction, linking their public personas as fans and scholars of genre to the attitudes and ideologies advanced by their fiction. These projects, anti-imperialist or feminist in nature, make self-conscious arguments about the value of the popular genres with which they interact. By focusing on the links between the author’s persona, public reception, and cultural fandoms, and the impact of these elements on contemporary cross-genre fiction, I attempt to revitalize genre theory in a manner that challenges its historically hierarchal configurations, particularly for women authors and consumers of the popular.
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Lundberg, Elizabeth Katherine. "Reading ruptures: empathy, gender, and the literature of bodily permeability." Diss., University of Iowa, 2015. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6185.
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The concept of empathy has long been studied by literary scholars. Empathy can refer to several different affective, political, and aesthetic phenomena, however, and its often assumed connection to reading is far from proven. This dissertation explores three specific aspects of empathy as they appear in postwar North American fiction, with special emphasis on what they suggest about empathy’s relationship to gendered embodiment. Reading Ruptures examines readerly empathy (an aesthetic encounter with literature) in representations of dubious sexual consent; affective empathy (a political sentiment) in representations of pregnancy; and communicative empathy (a linguistic trope of science fiction) in representations of language viruses. While these distinct types of empathy can be conceptualized and experienced separately, they illuminate each other’s political opportunities and challenges when placed in conversation. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that although science fiction’s contributions to this conversation have historically been undervalued, SF offers fresh insights into empathy’s continuing and evolving relevance for posthuman embodiment and postmodern literature.
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Mighall, Robert. "The brigand in the laboratory : a study of the discursive exchange between Gothic fiction and nineteenth-century medico-legal science." Thesis, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.683119.
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Glover, Jayne Ashleigh. ""A complex and delicate web" : a comparative study of selected speculative novels by Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doris Lessing and Marge Piercy /." [S.l. : s.n.], 2007. http://eprints.ru.ac.za/1001/.
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McGrail, Heather M. "Frank and Gala." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2011. http://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1362.
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Cristofari, Cécile. "Cosmogonies imaginaires : les mondes secondaires dans la science-fiction et la fantasy anglophones, de 1929 à nos jours." Thesis, Aix-Marseille, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013AIXM3030.
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J'ai voulu étudier un phénomène qui sous-tend l'écriture de la littérature spéculative (science-fiction et fantasy) aujourd'hui : la création d'un « monde secondaire », selon l'expression de J.R.R. Tolkien. Deux problèmes se posaient de prime abord. Premièrement, l'ensemble culturel et éditorial que recouvre l'expression « littérature spéculative » est relativement flou, du fait des problèmes de délimitation des genres et de la problématique culturelle plus générale (la littérature spéculative est-elle définie par des motifs littéraires, ou par l'appareil culturel qui l'entoure ?). Deuxièmement, un « monde secondaire » est-il uniquement un univers inventé entièrement différent ou détaché du monde réel, ou peut-il recouper le monde réel, etc. ? La littérature spéculative étant un genre foisonnant et en pleine évolution, j'ai pris le parti de ne pas donner de réponses définitives. Plutôt que de tenter de tracer des frontières, j'ai cherché à mettre en évidence les différents éléments dont se constituent les mondes secondaires : les traditions du genre sur lesquels les auteurs s'appuient pour transmettre la vision d'un univers original à leurs lecteurs, entre mise en avant de l'originalité et utilisation d'éléments connus comme soubassement, ainsi que la vision particulière de l'histoire, de la géographie et de la place de l'humanité dans le monde que les auteurs développent. Cette réflexion se veut située à la fois en amont et en aval de l'acte d'écriture. Elle se conclut sur les questions qui se posent aux auteurs contemporains : questions de renouvellement du genre, ou d'ouverture sur les autres médias, en particulier ceux que pratiquent les amateurs<br>I endeavoured to study a phenomenon underlying contemporary speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy): the creation of a ‘secondary world', to use J.R.R. Tolkien's phrasing. I had to solve two preliminary problems. First, the cultural and economic phenomenon that speculative fiction represents has a blurry outline, questions regarding genre delimitation and wider cultural problems (is speculative fiction defined only by a number of literary patterns, or by the whole cultural apparatus that goes with it?) being difficult to answer. Secondly, does the notion secondary worlds only apply to invented worlds that are entirely different or detached from the real world, or can it be applied to texts that take place at least partly in the real world, etc.? Speculative fiction being a diverse genre that has been steadily evolving for years, I have chosen to avoid giving definitive answers to those questions. Instead of looking for boundaries, I have tried to emphasise the various building blocks of secondary worlds in speculative fiction: the traditions of the genre authors rely on to convey their view of an original universe to their readers, in a dialogue between known elements used as a foundation and the idiosyncratic view of history, geography and the place of mankind in the particular secondary world developed by the author. In an attempt to open this study to the contemporary practice of world-building, I have concluded with the questions that speculative fiction authors face today: how to renew the tropes of the genre, how speculative fiction pervades other media, in particular the practices of fans
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Lacy, Dianna C. "Expanding the Definition of Liminality: Speculative Fiction as an Exploration of New Boundaries." ScholarWorks@UNO, 2019. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2698.
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Speculative fiction allows an expanded view of literature and so allows scholars to explore new boundaries in the way words and ideas work. In the titular character of The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, the reader sees an expansion of self through liminality while A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick explores its collapse. In order to portray each of these the character examined must move though one seems to move upward and the other downward. This idea of movement is only part of what expands the idea of liminality past the traditional idea of a doorway to create a hallway that the character might traverse on the way from place to place. This is not a redefinition of the term but a revision, a change in the way that we look at the concept as we accept and explore newer genres.
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Dihal, Kanta. "The stories of quantum physics : quantum physics in literature and popular science, 1900-present." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ebe4c5eb-ce48-495f-b015-024f8ac4f4ac.
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This thesis investigates quantum physics narratives for non-physicists, covering four interlocking modes of writing for adults and children, fictional and nonfictional, from 1900 to the present. It brings together three separate scholarly fields: literature and science, science fiction, and science communication. The thesis has revealed parallels between the approaches to quantum physics in these disparate narratives that have not been addressed before, shedding new light on the mutual influences between science and narrative form. The thesis argues that similar narrative tropes have been employed in popular science writing and in fiction across all age groups, changing non-physicists' ideas of quantum physics. This understanding differs significantly from the professional understanding of quantum physics, as I establish by means of a series of case studies, including popular science books for adults by Alastair I.M. Rae, George Gamow and Robert Gilmore; popularizations for children by Lucy and Stephen Hawking, Russell Stannard, and Otto Fong; children's fiction by Philip Pullman and Madeleine L'Engle; and fiction for adults by Greg Egan, David Walton, Blake Crouch, and Iain Pears. An analysis of authors who wrote for various audiences or in multiple genres, such as Fred Hoyle, Stephen Hawking, and Ian Stewart, shows how the same concerns and conflicts surface in a wide range of stories. Quantum physics is not yet fully understood; the Copenhagen, conscious collapse, many-worlds and other interpretations compete for both scientific and public acceptance. Influential physics communicators such as John Gribbin and Brian Cox have written popularizations in which they express a personal preference for one interpretation, arguing against others. Scientific conflict, which tends to be omitted from university teaching, is thus explicitly present in popularizations, making it clear to the reader that quantum physics is in a constant state of flux. I investigate the conflicts between Fred Hoyle and George Gamow, and Stephen Hawking and Leonard Susskind, to see how they undermine the alleged objectivity of science. The interplay between the different stories of quantum physics shows how the science not only shapes the stories: the stories shape the science, too.
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Kelly, Nicholas M. "The freedom of information hacked: console cowboys, computer wizards, and personal freedom in the digital age." Diss., University of Iowa, 2016. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6778.
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“The Freedom of Information Hacked: Console Cowboys, Computer Wizards, and Personal Freedom in the Digital Age” examines depictions of computer hackers in fiction, the media, and popular culture, assessing how such depictions both influence and reflect popular conceptions of hackers and what they do. In doing so, the dissertation demonstrates the central concerns of hacker stories—concerns about digital security, privacy, and the value of information—have become the concerns of digital culture as a whole, hackers laying bare collective hopes and fears regarding digital networks.
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Guthrie, Marie. "Robert A. Heinlein: A Philosophical Novelist." TopSCHOLAR®, 1985. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1559.
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Robert A. Heinlein is a key figure in the development of American science fiction. What makes his contribution unique is his emphasis on philosophical speculation. Heinlein's program is based on rationality as a vital element to salvation. Although the importance of rationality is an aspect of many schools of philosophy particular value may be gained by comparing Heinlein's system with the philosophy of Plotinus. An examination of Heinlein's key works (Stranger in a Strange Land. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough For Love, The Number of the Beast--. And various short stories I provides ample evidence to support the idea that the two systems are quite similar. Thus it becomes apparent that Heinlein presents a carefully considered world view which is particularly exemplified in his competent heroes, and in his concern for family, morality, and aesthetics.
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Toerien, Michelle. "Boundaries in cyberpunk fiction : William Gibson's Neuromancer trilogy, Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix, and Neal Stephenson's Snow crash." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/51639.
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Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2000.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Cyberpunk literature explores the effects that developments in technology will have on
the lives of individuals in the future. Technology is seen as having the potential to be of
benefit to society, but it is also seen as a dangerous tool that can be used to severely limit
humanity's freedom. Most of the characters in the texts I examine wish to perpetuate the
boundaries that contain them in a desperate search for stability. Only a few individuals
manage to move beyond the boundaries created by multinational corporations that use
technology, drugs or religion for their own benefit.
This thesis will provide a definition of cyberpunk and explore its development from
science fiction and postmodern writing. The influence of postmodern thinking on
cyberpunk literature can be seen in its move from stability to fluidity, and in its insistence
on the impossibility of creating fixed boundaries. Cyberpunk does not see the future of
humanity as stable, and argues that it will be necessary for humanity to move beyond the
boundaries that contain it. The novels I discuss present different views concerning the
nature of humanity's merging with technology. One view is that humanity is moving
towards a posthuman future, while some argue that humanity is not discarded, but that
these characters have merely evolved to the next step in the natural development of
humankind. Both these views deal with constant change, a notion advocated by both
postmodernism and cyberpunk.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: "Cyberpunk" literatuur ondersoek die uitwerking wat tegnologiese ontwikkeling in die
toekoms op die lewens van individue sal hê. Tegnologie word gesien as tot moontlike
voordeel vir die samelewing, maar dit kan ook 'n gevaarlike wapen wees wat gebruik kan
word om die mens se vryheid in te perk. Die meerderheid van die karakters in die romans
wat ek bespreek verkies om die grense wat hulle inperk te handhaaf in 'n desperate
strewe na stabiliteit. Slegs 'n paar individue kry dit wel reg om verby die grense te breek
wat deur multinasionale organisasies geskep word vir hul eie gewin.
In hierdie tesis kyk ek na 'n definisie van "cyberpunk" en ek ondersoek die invloed van
wetenskapsfiksie en postmodernisme op die ontwikkeling van die beweging. Die invloed
van postmodernistiese denke kan gesien word in "cyberpunk" se fokus op
veranderlikheid eerder as stabiliteit. "Cyberpunk" sien nie die toekoms van die mens as
stabiel nie, en die argument is dat dit nodig is vir die mens om verby die grense te
beweeg wat vryheid inperk. Die romans wat ek bespreek bevat verskillende sieninge oor
die tipe samesmelting wat die mens en tegnologie sal hê. Sommige voel dat die kategorie
"mens" permanent agterlaat gaan word, terwyl ander argumenteer dat individue slegs sal
ontwikkel tot die volgende stap in die natuurlike ontwikkeling van die mens.
Voortdurende verandering is die fokus van beide hierdie standpunte, en dit is ook die
belangrikste fokus van beide "cyberpunk" en postmodernisme.
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Gillespie, Robert Arthur. "Shades of an urban frontier : historical resonances in the cities of Black and Anglophone SF." Diss., University of Iowa, 2015. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1609.
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Cities have a paradoxical relationship with science fiction literature. On the one hand, critics like Brian Aldiss have called sf a `literature of cities', citing them as the dominant context for speculative fiction. On the other, critics like Gary Wolfe have noted how sf has an "anti-urban frontier mentality" and how sf narratives involving cities often tend to view them as a trap from which the protagonist must escape. This relationship is even more complex in sf works by African American authors, as contemporary African American fiction in general takes the city as the dominant context for black social life and has turned to interrogate "issues of urban community" in the post-Civil Rights era.
This dissertation explores the connections between the heterogeneous urban histories of Anglo-European and African American sf authors and the cities they construct. It does so by comparing the portrayal of cities by each group and relating the commonalities and contrasts that emerge from these portrayals to the differences and similarities between African American urban history and Anglo-European urban history. To provide a common ground for comparison, two city typologies are focused on: the `imperial city' that reigns at the heart of sf's many empires, and the empty metropolis of the `dead city' or `ghost city'. The study finds that these narratives all interrogate crises of political and environmental sustainability in urban history, but that the focus of these crises often diverge along the axis of race, with an especially large concentration on the crises related to racially targeted urban renewal programs present in black sf's dead cities and on crises related to black anti-imperialist politics in its imperial cities.
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Dedman, Stephen. "Techronomicon (novel) ; and The weapon shop : the relationship between American science fiction and the US military (dissertation)." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2008. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2008.0093.
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Techronomicon Techronomicon is a science fiction novel that examines far-future military actions from several different perspectives. Human beings have colonized several planets with help from the enigmatic and more technologically advanced Zhir, who gave spaceships and habitable worlds to those they deemed suitable and their descendants. The Joint Expeditionary Force is the military arm of the Universal Faith, called in when conflicts arise that the Faith decides are beyond the local government and militia and require their intervention. Leneveldt and Roader are JEF officers assigned to Operation Techronomicon, investigating what seems to be a Zhir-built defence shield around the planet Lassana. Another JEF company sent to Kalaabhavan after the murder of the planets Confessor-General loses its CO to a land-mine, and Lieutenant Hellerman reluctantly accepts command. Chevalier, a civilian pilot, takes refugees fleeing military-run detention camps on Ararat to a biological research station on otherwise uninhabited Lila. The biologists on Lila discover a symbiote that enables humans to photosynthesize, which comes to the attention of Operation Techronomicon and the JEF's Weapons Research Division. Leneveldt and Roeder, frustrated by the lack of progress on Lassana, are sent to Lila to detain the biologists, who flee into the swamps. Hellerman's efforts to restore peace on Kalaabhavan are frustrated by the Confessors, and his company finds itself besieged by insurgents. The novel explores individuals' motives for choosing or rejecting violence and/or military service; the lessons they learn about themselves and their enemies; and the possible results of attempts to forcibly suppress ideas.
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Sanders, Elizabeth Mildred. "Enchanting Belief: Religion and Secularism in the Victorian Supernatural Novel." Diss., University of Iowa, 2015. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/5186.
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Troscianko, Emily Tamarisk. "The literary science of the 'Kafkaesque'." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2009. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:47188ae7-a32b-41e8-b591-303b7d9367de.
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This study provides a precise definition of the term 'Kafkaesque' by enriching literary criticism with scientific theory and practice, including an experiment on readers' responses to Kafka. Dictionary definitions justify taking the term back to its textual origins in Kafka's works, and the works can fruitfully be analysed by investigating how readers engage with them through cognitive processes of imagination. Modern scientific developments posit that vision, imagination, and consciousness should be conceived of not in terms of static pictorialism – reducible to the notion of 'pictures in the head' – but in terms of enaction, i.e. as an ongoing interaction with the external world around us. Most traditional nineteenth-century Realist texts are based on pictorialist assumptions, while Kafka's texts evoke perception non-pictorially and are therefore more cognitively realistic. In his personal writings, Kafka wrestles with problems entailed by pictorialist conceptions of vision, imagination, and the function of language, and comes to enactivist solutions: evocation of perception that does not result in painting static tableaux with words. In his fictional works, Kafka correspondingly evolves a cognitively realistic way of writing to evoke fictional worlds that directly engage the cognitive processes of their readers; Der Proceß is a prime example of the 'Kafkaesque' text and reading experience, defined by being compelling yet simultaneously unsettling. Modulations in narrative perspective and evocation of emotion as enactive also contribute to the experience of the 'Kafkaesque' as compelling; yet Kafka's texts simultaneously unsettle by preventing straightforward emotional identification with the protagonists, and destabilising deep-rooted concepts of selfhood as singular and unified. The theoretical discussion of the 'Kafkaesque' experience as compelling yet unsettling is complemented and refined by an experiment testing readers' responses to a short story by Kafka. The term 'Kafkaesque realism' denotes Kafka's compelling yet unsettling non-pictorial evocation of perception of the fictional world. Kafkaesque realism falls into the broader category of 'cognitive realism', which provides a framework for analysing fictional texts more generally.
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Alegrette, Alessandro Yuri. "Frankenstein : uma releitura do mito de criação /." Araraquara : [s.n.], 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/91524.
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Orientador: Maria Clara Bonetti Paro<br>Banca: Karin Volobuef<br>Banca: José Garcez Ghirardi<br>Resumo: A dissertação de mestrado, "Frankenstein: uma releitura do mito de criação", tem como principal objetivo demonstrar como a escritora inglesa Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, por meio de seu romance Frankenstein, ou o moderno Prometeu (1818), conseguiu criar um novo mito, isto é, o mito de Frankenstein, contribuiu para a renovação do romance gótico e para a criação de uma nova modalidade literária - a ficção científica. No primeiro capítulo foi realizado um estudo sobre as origens, características e principais obras do romance gótico. No segundo capítulo é abordada a relação entre mito e literatura e são analisados quais mitos aparecem no enredo do romance de Mary Shelley, enfatizando-se a importância do relato mítico de Prometeu. No terceiro capítulo é estudada a construção do discurso narrativo mítico de Frankenstein e é demonstrada a intertextualidade dessa obra com outros textos, tais como poemas, romances e estudos filosóficos e científicos. No quarto e último capítulo é demonstrado a releitura do mito de criação feita por Mary Shelley, a conseqüente criação do mito de Frankenstein, e as diversas interpretações e releituras que o romance recebeu, terminando com Blade Runner (O caçador de andróides, 1982), filme do cineasta inglês Ridley Scott que, ao promover a atualização do mito de Frankenstein, deu uma contribuição significativa para sua permanência em nossa cultura<br>Abstract: The main aim of this Master's Thesis, "Frankenstein: a rewriting of the myth of creation, is demonstrate how the English writer Mary Shelley in her novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818), created a new kind of myth, renewed the gothic novel and gave origin to a new literary genre - science fiction. The first chapter discusses - the origins, characteristics and main works of the Gothic literature. The second chapter explores the relationships between myth and literature, and analyses which myths are present in the plot of Mary Shelley's novel, stressing the importance of the Promethean's story. The third chapter is concerned with the construction of mythic narrative discourse and with the novel's intertextuality with different kind texts, such as poems, another novels and philosophical and scientific studies. The fourth and last chapter concentrates on Mary Shelley's rewriting of the myth of creation, on the different ways her novel was interpreted and read, and it finishes with study of the film by the English director Ridley Scott, Blade Runner (1982), that offered a major contribution to update and foster the permanence of the Frankenstein's myth in our culture<br>Mestre
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Abbott, William Thomas. "White Knowledge and the Cauldron of Story: The Use of Allusion in Terry Pratchett's Discworld." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2002. https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/630.
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In the last twenty years, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series has become very popular. Pratchett's success hinges in part on his use of allusion, in what Tolkien called the "Cauldron of Story," and what Pratchett refers to as "white knowledge." This paper explores the Discworld novels and illustrates Pratchett's use and success of storytelling through a few key directions: folk tales, fantasy literature, movies, and rock music.
Pratchett has received limited critical review, mostly of a negative nature, while producing a strong literary series, one crafted with both obvious and subtle recognition of his genre's sources. While standing on the shoulders of giants, Pratchett both respects and scrutinizes the myths and stories that construct our reality. Critically, Pratchett's fiction deserves more respect and closer study; this paper attempts to give him his due.
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Balster, Lori Maria Tarkany. "Cassie Dates Melvin: Or, How Two People Struggle to Save Their Town Despite a Few Small Obstacles Such as Killer Philodendrons (an Excerpt from Book Two in a Series)." University of Dayton / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=dayton1280259112.
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Alegrette, Alessandro Yuri [UNESP]. "Frankenstein: uma releitura do mito de criação." Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/11449/91524.
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Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:25:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0
Previous issue date: 2010-03-02Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:13:43Z : No. of bitstreams: 1
alegrette_ay_me_arafcl.pdf: 573460 bytes, checksum: 4e564e7284dc1d936b52f3ee5ff8275f (MD5)<br>Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)<br>A dissertação de mestrado, “Frankenstein: uma releitura do mito de criação”, tem como principal objetivo demonstrar como a escritora inglesa Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, por meio de seu romance Frankenstein, ou o moderno Prometeu (1818), conseguiu criar um novo mito, isto é, o mito de Frankenstein, contribuiu para a renovação do romance gótico e para a criação de uma nova modalidade literária - a ficção científica. No primeiro capítulo foi realizado um estudo sobre as origens, características e principais obras do romance gótico. No segundo capítulo é abordada a relação entre mito e literatura e são analisados quais mitos aparecem no enredo do romance de Mary Shelley, enfatizando-se a importância do relato mítico de Prometeu. No terceiro capítulo é estudada a construção do discurso narrativo mítico de Frankenstein e é demonstrada a intertextualidade dessa obra com outros textos, tais como poemas, romances e estudos filosóficos e científicos. No quarto e último capítulo é demonstrado a releitura do mito de criação feita por Mary Shelley, a conseqüente criação do mito de Frankenstein, e as diversas interpretações e releituras que o romance recebeu, terminando com Blade Runner (O caçador de andróides, 1982), filme do cineasta inglês Ridley Scott que, ao promover a atualização do mito de Frankenstein, deu uma contribuição significativa para sua permanência em nossa cultura<br>The main aim of this Master’s Thesis, “Frankenstein: a rewriting of the myth of creation, is demonstrate how the English writer Mary Shelley in her novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818), created a new kind of myth, renewed the gothic novel and gave origin to a new literary genre - science fiction. The first chapter discusses – the origins, characteristics and main works of the Gothic literature. The second chapter explores the relationships between myth and literature, and analyses which myths are present in the plot of Mary Shelley’s novel, stressing the importance of the Promethean’s story. The third chapter is concerned with the construction of mythic narrative discourse and with the novel’s intertextuality with different kind texts, such as poems, another novels and philosophical and scientific studies. The fourth and last chapter concentrates on Mary Shelley’s rewriting of the myth of creation, on the different ways her novel was interpreted and read, and it finishes with study of the film by the English director Ridley Scott, Blade Runner (1982), that offered a major contribution to update and foster the permanence of the Frankenstein’s myth in our culture
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Carstens, Johannes Petrus (Delphi). "Uncovering the apocalypse : narratives of collapse and transformation in the 21st century Fin de Siècle." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/85700.
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Thesis (PhD)-- Stellenbosch University, 2013.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation examines the idea of apocalypse through the lens of science fiction (sf) written during the
current fin de siècle period. I have dated this epoch, known as the information era, as starting in 1980 with the
advent of personal computing and ending in approximately 2020 when the functional limits of silicon-based
digital manufacturing and production are expected to be reached. By surveying the field of contemporary sf, I
identify certain trends and subgenres that relate to particular aspects of apocalyptic thought, namely,
conceptions of the ‘terror of history,’ the sublimity of accelerated techno-scientific advance, the ‘affective turn’
in media-culture and posthuman philosophy. My principal method of inquiry into how the apocalypse is
imagined or ‘figured’ in sf is the concept of hyperstition – a neologism (combining the words ‘hyper’ and
‘superstition’) coined by the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU). Hyperstition describes an aesthetic
response whereby cultural fictions – principally, ideas relating to apocalypse – are imagined as transmuting into
material realities. I begin by scrutinizing two posthumanist works of theory-fiction (theory written in the mode
of sf) by the CCRU and 0rphan Drift which anticipate immanent human extinction and imagine the inception of
a new evolutionary cycle of machine-augmented evolution This sensibility is premised on the sociallydestabilising
cycles of exponential growth that characterise information-era technological developments,
particularly in the digital industries, as well as the accelerated human impact on the natural environment. Central
to my argument is the romantic materialist philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari and their concepts of
accelerationism, schizoanalysis and Bodies without Organs (BwO’s). Their ontology is constructed around the
idea that exponential rates of development necessitate a new aesthetic paradigm that ventures beyond
philosophies of human access. The narrative of apocalypse, approached from this perspective, can be interpreted
in catastrophic or anastrophic terms; either as a permanent ending or as the beginning of something radically
new. Using hyperstition, I also investigate the sf of Russell Hoban, Michael Swanwick, Brian Stableford,
Charles Stross, Dan Simmons, M. John Harrison and Paul McAuley to see not only how these authors interpret
the concept of cultural acceleration, but also to identify common threads. Countering the catastrophic ‘death of
affect’ postulated by theorists such as Jean Baudrillard and Paul Virilio with the anastrophic rejoinder of
cyberdelic information-era countercultures, I conclude by investigating the new ‘affective turn’ in contemporary
media theory. The works of theoretical fiction and sf that I investigate are informed, as I demonstrate, by the
Situationist techniques of psychogeography, dérive and detournement, as well as by the literary tropes of 18th
and 19th century fin de siècle Gothic and dark Romantic fiction.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie proefskrif ondersoek die idee van apokalips deur die oogpunt van wetenskap fiksie (wf) soos geskryf
gedurende die huidige ‘fin de siècle’ tydperk. Ek dateer hierdie epog, bekend as die inligtings-era, as die
tydperk wat in 1980 begin met die koms van persoonlike rekenaars en nagenoeg eindig in 2020, wanneer die
funksionele limiete van silikon gebaseerde digitale vervaardiging en produksie na verwagting bereik sal word.
Deur die veld van kontemporêre wf in oënskou te neem, identifiseer ek sekere neigings en sub-genres wat
vergelyk met sekere kenmerke van apokaliptiese denke, naamlik: begrippe soos die ‘verskrikking van
geskiedenis’, die verhewendheid van versnelde tegno-wetenskaplike vooruitgang, die ‘emosionele omkeer’ in
media-kultuur en post-humanistiese filosofie. My primêre metode van ondersoek van hoe die apokalips
voorgestel of ‘beskryf’ kan word in wf, is die begrip van hiper-bygelowigheid - ‘n neologisme (samevoeging
van die woorde ‘hiper’ en ‘bygeloof’) soos geskep deur die Kubernetiese Kultuur Navorsings-Eenheid (KKNE)
en Nick Land, medestigter van die KKNE. Hiper-bygelowigheid beskryf die proses waarvolgens kulturele
versinsels - hoofsaaklik opvattings met betrekking tot apokalips – in materiële realiteite omgeskakel kan word.
Ek ondersoek ek twee post-humanistiese werke van teorie-fiksie (teorie geskryf volgens die wf metode) deur
KKNE en 0rphan Drift, wat inherente menslike uitwissing verwag en die ontstaan van ‘n nuwe evolusionêre
siklus van masjien-toename voorstel. Hierdie proses is gebaseer op die sosiaal-destabiliserende siklus van
eksponensiële groei wat kenmerkend is van die inligtings-era se tegnologiese ontwikkelinge, veral in die digitale
industrie, sowel as versnelde menslike impak op die natuurlike omgewing. Die kern van my beredenering is die
goties-materialisties-teoriese standpunt soos deur Land ingeneem, sowel as die romanties-materialistiese
filosofie van Deleuze en Guattari. Hierdie gevalle van neo-materialistiese (of objek-georiënteerde) filosofië
word toegelig deur ‘n apokalipties-teoretiese basis bekend as akseleerasionisme. Hierdie uitgangspunt is
ontwikkel rondom die idee dat die eksponensiële tempo van ontwikkeling ‘n klimaks sal bereik in ‘n
evolusionêre ‘wipplank punt’ en dat ‘n nuwe estetiese paradigma nodig is wat dit bokant die filosofie van
menslike vermoë kan waag sodat daar oor hierdie waarskynlikheid geteoretiseer kan word. Die beskrywing van
apokalips, soos vanuit hierdie oogpunt beskou, kan vertolk word in beide katastrofiese of anastrofiese terme of
as ‘n permanente einde of as die begin van iets wat radikaal nuut sal wees. Deur gebruik te maak van die
hiperbygelowigheidsteorie, wat ‘n onderafdeling is van akseleerasionisme, ondersoek ek WF van Russell
Hoban, Michael Swanwick, Brian Stableford, Charles Stross, Dan Simmons, M. John Harrison and Paul
McAuley ten einde vas te stel hoe hierdie skrywers die konsep van kulturele akseleerasie interpreteer, maar ook
om gemeenskaplike leidrade te identifiseer. Met teenargumentering ten opsigte van die katastrofiese ‘dood van affek’ gepostuleer deur teoretici soos Jean Baudrillard en Paul Virillio met die anastrofiese samevoeging van
kuberdeliese inligtings-era-kontra-kulture, ondersoek ek die nuwe ‘gemoedsomkeer’ in kontemporêre mediateorie.
Die werke van teoretiese fiksie, sowel as baie van die ander gevalle van wf wat ek ondersoek en soos
deur my gedemonstreer, word toegelig deur Situasienistiese tegnieke van psigo-geografie, dérive en
detournement, sowel as deur die literêre menigtes van die 19de eeu ‘fin de siècle’ donker Romantiese en Gotiese fiksie.
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Glover, Jayne Ashleigh. ""A complex and delicate web" : a comparative study of selected speculative novels by Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doris Lessing and Marge Piercy." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002241.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines selected speculative novels by Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doris Lessing and Marge Piercy. It argues that a specifiable ecological ethic can be traced in their work – an ethic which is explored by them through the tensions between utopian and dystopian discourses. The first part of the thesis begins by theorising the concept of an ecological ethic of respect for the Other through current ecological philosophies, such as those developed by Val Plumwood. Thereafter, it contextualises the novels within the broader field of science fiction, and speculative fiction in particular, arguing that the shift from a critical utopian to a critical dystopian style evinces their changing treatment of this ecological ethic within their work. The remainder of the thesis is divided into two parts, each providing close readings of chosen novels in the light of this argument. Part Two provides a reading of Le Guin’s early Hainish novels, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Word for World is Forest and The Dispossessed, followed by an examination of Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, Lessing’s The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five, and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The third, and final, part of the thesis consists of individual chapters analysing the later speculative novels of each author. Piercy’s He, She and It, Le Guin’s The Telling, and Atwood’s Oryx and Crake are all scrutinised, as are Lessing’s two recent ‘Ifrik’ novels. This thesis shows, then, that speculative fiction is able to realise through fiction many of the ideals of ecological thinkers. Furthermore, the increasing dystopianism of these novels reflects the greater urgency with which the problem of Othering needs to be addressed in the light of the present global ecological crisis.
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Leupolt, Cécile [Verfasser]. "Imagination in Ian McEwan's Fiction : A Literary and Cognitive Science Approach / Cécile Leupolt." Frankfurt a.M. : Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2018. http://d-nb.info/1161046348/34.
Full text
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Shaw, Maya. "⏁⊑⊬⟊, ⏁⎎⎅☌⊬⍜⍀: Alien Languages In Science Fiction." Thesis, Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-194006.
Full textAbstract:
Language is a central concern of science fiction. From first contact to interstellar warfare, stories about aliens inevitably raise questions of communication. But how do we conceive of alien languages within the constraints of human language? And what do depictions of alien languages reveal about our own language use? Several studies have established the significance and magnitude of the theme of language in (predominantly twentieth century western) science fiction. Building on these studies, I combine macro-analysis with close reading to argue that these alien languages fall on a spectrum of alterity. Within this spectrum, I organise these languages into three distinct gradations of alterity: they help to define their speakers as alien people, creatures or inscrutable beings. The languages of alien 'people’ are structurally similar to our own, and explore the socio-political relationship between language and culture. Those of ‘creatures’ are radically, physically unlike human languages and explore the boundary between humans, animals and aliens. Finally, the languages of ‘beings’ are incomprehensible and prone to spiritualisation. They bring to light the aspects of experience we deem beyond language. This typology provides a framework through which to explore the major themes and questions regarding language, humanity and alterity in science fiction. By presenting these categories in increasing degrees of alterity, I aim to demonstrate that language, like the figure of the alien, is a fundamentally anthropocentric concept. Each category identifies different facets of our language use that simultaneously alienate and define us.
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Smith, Roslyn Nicole. "Medias Res, Temporal Double-Consciousness and Resistance in Octavia Butler's Kindred." unrestricted, 2007. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11242007-230409/.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007.<br>Title from file title page. Elizabeth West, committee chair; Layli Phillips, Kameelah Martin Samuel, committee members. Electronic text (52 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Jan. 30, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-52).
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Miller, Susan. "Shelley's early fiction in relation to his poetics and his politics : an assessment : not waiting to see the event of his victory." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2013. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4130/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis positions itself between two general approaches to Shelley, that of appreciating his poetics, on the one hand, and that of valuing his philosophical vision, on the other. Duffy has noted that “Shelley’s epistemological and political maturity is no longer in any serious doubt”, and he goes on to demonstrate that Shelley’s radical tendencies remained undiminished throughout his lifetime. My findings support Duffy’s contention, and broaden it to include not only Shelley’s writings but the actions of his life. At the same time, O’Neill has highlighted the importance of exploring Shelley’s poetry for “its imaginative effect as much as its ideological or philosophical coherence”, and that approach will be utilized here as well. My hypothesis is that Shelley’s early fiction, in particular his two early novels, Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne, possess value and deserve attention, and can shed light on his poetics as well as his politics. Moreover, conducting my research has revealed issues of sexism, gender, class and feminism, all of which will be explored. The thesis consists of four main chapters, and four lyric interludes. Chapter one deals with the novels themselves, including their association with the Gothic genre, and offers specific details concerning the delineation and focus of the thesis. Chapter two examines the novels in light of Laon and Cythna or The Revolt of Islam, raising issues of domestic happiness and familial relationships. This lengthy poem, which is frequently neglected in close readings of Shelley, occupies a starring role here. Chapter three continues the examination of the novels as pertains The Cenci, in addition to grappling with matters raised in chapters one and two in a more general context. Finally, chapter four scrutinizes Prometheus Unbound in terms of the Gothic or Romance novels and suggests a new possible interpretation. Interspersed between and complementary to the main chapters is a series of chronologically arranged lyric interludes. This organizational structure, similar to Molière’s use of interludes in The Hypochondriac (Le Malade imaginaire), was adopted because these poems are shorter and can stand apart from one another, and it was deemed more appropriate to incorporate them with flexibility into the main argument, like a moon orbiting its planet, rather than grouping them together as a single unit.
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Byatt, Jim. "Taboo and transgression : reconfiguring the monstrous in contemporary British fiction." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2009. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3633/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis considers the remaindered other in contemporary British society, and the representation of that other in British fiction since 1968. The liberal approach to otherness that has arguably been a defining characteristic of the British identity since the Second World War has, I argue, always been incomplete, leaving a remainder to whom equal representation and cultural acceptance have been denied. By examining a diverse range of texts which address an equally diverse range of identities, this thesis addresses the questions of what otherness means in contemporary society, how it manifests and manages itself, and how the fiction of the period addresses the social anomaly. In recent studies of controversial fiction, there has been a tendency to focus either on the aesthetics of excess (eg. Durand and Mandel, 2006), in which the transgression is primarily stylistic, or else on the marginality of the now-legitimised “other” (in particular the homosexual, the racial other, or the working class; eg. Nicola Allen, 2008). In contrast, this thesis examines novels that engage with those figures who have remained socially excluded, figures whose tabooed identity has persisted in spite of the broader move toward liberal inclusivity. The primary texts discussed are, largely, novels that have received little critical attention, despite their literary credibility, highlighting a reluctance to engage with those problematic identities that remain outside the realm of cultural legitimacy. The thesis positions the criminally transgressive (the paedophile, the incestuous family, the sociopath) alongside the culturally stigmatised (the disabled, the elderly and the dying) in an attempt to demonstrate a continuity of resistance to a diverse range of tabooed identities. Theoretically, the argument draws on aspects of cultural studies, structuralism, anthropology and disability studies in order to examine the representation of the tabooed voice and to consider its legitimacy in the contemporary literary field.
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Pratt-Smith, Stella. "Creative sparks : literary responses to electricity, 1830-1880." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:68d9c5fd-21ad-4ebb-8348-f0d4531be5bb.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines accounts of electricity in journalism, short stories, novels, poetry and instructional writings, composed between 1830 and 1880 by scientific investigators, popular practitioners and fiction authors. The writings are approached as diverse and often incongruous impressions of electricity, in which the use of figurative and narrative techniques brings into question distinctions between science and literature. It is proposed that the unusual combination of electricity’s historical characterisation as an elixir vitae, intense investigation by contemporary scientists, and close alliance with new technologies offered unique opportunities for imaginative speculation. The thesis contends that engaging with these conflicting characteristics created a synthesis of scientific, social and literary responses that defy epistemological and generic categorisation. Fictionality is approached in chapter two as a central feature of scientific conceptualisation, experiment and discovery, particularly in the work of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell. In chapters three and four, the landscape of popular non-fiction books and periodicals is mapped, to show the ways in which the period’s publication contexts and forums, reading patterns, and use of literary practices contributed to wider engagement with ideas about electricity. Chapters five and six focus on fiction writings, identifying parallels and divergences between actual electrical science and its fictional portrayal. Short stories are shown to have emphasised associations between electricity, neurosis, deformity and the occult, complicating contemporary scientific optimism and presenting electricity as an alluring yet dangerous phenomenon, which disordered the natural world and man’s relationship with it. These characteristics are identified further in the metaphorical references of several canonical novelists, in the exploitation of electricity, elixirs and power depicted by William Harrison Ainsworth and Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and through a case study of the text and reception of a popular novel about electricity by Benjamin Lumley. The thesis contends that electricity’s anomalous and protean nature produced distinctively hybrid responses that enhance our understanding of contemporary popular writing, its contexts and how it was read.
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Harland, Rachel Fiona. "The depiction of crowds in 1930s German narrative fiction." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c8357884-eaf2-4daf-987b-82539148b38b.
Full textAbstract:
This study of 1930s German fiction adds a new dimension to existing scholarship on the depiction of crowds in literature. Whereas previous surveys on the topic have predominantly focused on the crowd as a revolutionary phenomenon judged on the basis of class perspectives, or as a feature of mass society, this investigation deals specifically with reactions to the crowd in its incarnation as a manifestation of and symbol for political fascism. Drawing on a number of contemporaneous theoretical treatises on crowds and mass psychology, it seeks to demonstrate that war, extreme socio-political upheaval and the rise of Nazism produced intense multidisciplinary engagement with the subject among German-speaking intellectuals of the period, and examines the portrayal of crowds in works by selected literary authors in this context. Exploring the interplay between literature and concurrent theoretical works, the thesis asks how writers used specific possibilities of fiction to engage with the theme of the crowd at a time when the worth of art was often questioned by literary authors themselves. In doing so, it challenges the implication of earlier criticism that authors uncritically appropriated the findings of theoretical texts for fictional purposes. At the same time, it becomes clear that although some literary crowd portrayals support a distinction between the nature of theoretical and literary writing, certain crowd theories are as imaginative as they are positivistic. Extrapolating from textual comparisons, the thesis thus challenges the view held by some authors that knowledge produced by theoretical enquiry was somehow truer and more valuable than artistic responses to the politics of the age.
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Ludtke, Laura Elizabeth. "The lightscape of literary London, 1880-1950." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:99e199bf-6a17-4635-bfbf-0f38a02c6319.
Full textAbstract:
From the first electric lights in London along Pall Mall, and in the Holborn Viaduct in 1878 to the nationalisation of National Grid in 1947, the narrative of the simple ascendency of a new technology over its outdated predecessor is essential to the way we have imagined electric light in London at the end of the nineteenth century. However, as this thesis will demonstrate, the interplay between gas and electric light - two co-existing and competing illuminary technologies - created a particular and peculiar landscape of light, a 'lightscape', setting London apart from its contemporaries throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Indeed, this narrative forms the basis of many assertions made in critical discussions of artificial illumination and technology in the late-twentieth century; however, this was not how electric light was understood at the time nor does it capture how electric light both captivated and eluded the imagination of contemporary Londoners. The influence of the electric light in the representations of London is certainly a literary question, as many of those writing during this period of electrification are particularly attentive to the city's rich and diverse lightscape. Though this has yet to be made explicit in existing scholarship, electric lights are the nexus of several important and ongoing discourses in the study of Victorian, Post-Victorian, Modernist, and twentieth-century literature. This thesis will address how the literary influence of the electric light and its relationship with its illuminary predecessors transcends the widespread electrification of London to engage with an imaginary London, providing not only a connection with our past experiences and conceptions of the city, modernity, and technology but also an understanding of what Frank Mort describes as the 'long cultural reach of the nineteenth century into the post-war period'.
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West, Mary Eileen. "White women writing white : a study of identity and representation in (post-)apartheid literatures of South Africa." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/442.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis examines aspects of identity and representation using contemporary theories and definitions emerging out of a growing body of work known as whiteness studies. The condition of whiteness as it continues to inform identity politics in post-apartheid South Africa is explored in an analysis of selected texts written by white women, to demonstrate the ways in which whiteness continues to suggest normativity. In reading a representative selection of literatures produced in contemporary South Africa by white women writers, this study aims to illustrate the ambivalence apparent in the interstitial manifestations of emergent reconciliatory gestures that are at odds with residual traces of superiority. A sampling of disparate texts is examined to explore the representations of race and belonging in post-apartheid South Africa in the light of contemporary theories of whiteness which posit it as a powerful and invisible identification. The analysis attempts to plot a continuum from writers who are least, through to those who are most, aware of whiteness as a cultural construct and of their own positionality in relation to the discursive dynamics that inform South African racial politics. A contextualising overview of the terrain of whiteness studies is provided in Chapter One, marking the ideological and theoretical affiliations of this project, and foregrounding the construction of whiteness as an imagined identity in contemporary cultural criticism. It also provides a justification for the selection of the textual material under scrutiny. Chapter Two explores a genre that has been identified as a growing trend in South African fiction: the production of pulp fiction written by white middle-class women. Two such texts are the focus of this chapter, namely, Pamela Jooste’s People like Ourselves (2004) and Susan Mann’s One Tongue Singing (2005), and the complicities and clichés that are characteristic of popular literature are examined. Antjie Krog’s A Change of Tongue (2003) is the focus of Chapter Three. It is examined as a book offering the writer’s personal response to the difficulties of transformation within the first decade of South African democracy. Krog confronts her own defensiveness, her sense of normalcy, and her sense of alienation in relation to multiple encounters with different people. Chapter Four focuses on the journalism of Marianne Thamm. Her role as columnist for the popular women’s magazine, Fairlady is explored, particularly in relation to the inclusion of a contending voice writing against the general tenets of Fairlady. Thamm’s critique of the mores governing bourgeois white womanhood is read in relation to her role as officially sanctioned Court Jester. Her Fairlady columns have been collected in Mental Floss (2002) but the analysis includes selected columns from 2003 to 2005. Echo Location: A Guide to Sea Point for Residents and Visitors (1998) by Karen Press is the focus of Chapter Five. Her work is read as examining a white South African crisis of belonging in relation to the implications of mapping the co-ordinates of whiteness in South Africa. Chapter Six offers a reading of four short stories, written by Nadine Gordimer and Marlene van Niekerk. These stories are juxtaposed to trace an anxious impasse in white responses to suburbia, the place of enactment of white bourgeois mores, which both writers interrogate.