Marija Dalbello

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Image credit Victor GAD
Marija Dalbello Reading Interests of Adults
Science fiction
Rutgers School of Communication and
Informationdalbello_at_rutgers.edu
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• Overview
• _______________________________________
• Introduction
• What is Speculative fiction?
• Science fiction and Fantasy Points of
  comparison
• The literature of What if?
• World-building
• Fandom and fan communities
• History and types of science fiction
• Conclusion

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• What is speculative fiction (SF)?
  _______________________________________
• Speculative literature or speculative fiction
• Umbrella term for science fiction, fantasy
  fiction, horror fiction, supernatural fiction,
  superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction,
  apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and
  alternate history
• Popularized by writers of the New Wave movement
  in the 1960s-1970s - genre as literary production
  
• Term originates from Robert A.Heinlein (1947) -
  synonymous with science fiction, to exclude
  fantasy
• Revival in the past decade to include fantasy -
  emphasis on literary and critical perspectives of
  SF writing

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• Comparing science fiction and fantasyThe
  literature of WHAT IF ?
• _______________________________________
• Science fiction
• Imagination provides access to experience and
  social experiment
• Access to understanding and experiencing our
  past,
• present, and future in terms of an imagined
  future (Cramer 1994)
• Argument for an imagined world-order
• Science fiction is any story that argues the case
  for a changed world that has not yet come into
  being. (Herald 2006, 313)
• Fantasy
• An allegorical springboard for nostalgic leaps to
  the past or into alternative worlds
• The Difficult truths can sometimes only be told
  through the
• medium of fantasy. (Herald 2000, 267)

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• Comparing science fiction and fantasyWorld-buildi
  ng
• _______________________________________
• Tolkiens definition of the fantasy genre
  elements (from On Fairy-Stories)
• Creation of an internally consistent secondary
  world (the subcreation)
• The use of Faerie (the use of magic and
  enchantment)
• World is accessed by the narrative skill of the
  author and the imaginative willingness of the
  reader

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• Comparing science fiction and fantasyWorld-buildi
  ng
• _______________________________________
• Extrapolative fiction - Science fiction
• Abrupt transition from our world to the fantasy
  world
• Transitions initiated by scientific mechanisms
  that transport us from our world to the fantasy
  world
• Evocative fiction - Fantasy
• Another world is presented as clean and whole
• Another world is the place where the reader lives
  in for the length of the reading
• We learn not only about an alternative world but
  also an entire and parallel world history, with
  myths and values, villains and heroes

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• Relevant approaches and theories
• Fields of cultural production
• _______________________________________
• Fields of cultural production (Bourdieu)
  expanded beyond the producers of texts to
  producers of meanings around texts
• Camille Bacon-Smiths study of the culture of
  Worldcon conventions and fandom - ethnographic
  approach to describe the lived reality of science
  fiction community (readers and consumers of
  cultural products, creators and the industries)
• Production and consumption in science fiction
  connected
• Cultures of association exemplified in fandom -
  provide space outside of mainstream culture
• Genres science fiction, fantasy, costumers
• SUCH AS IN

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Relevant approaches and theories Fields of
cultural production _____________________________
__________
OR
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AS SHOWN IN
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(No Transcript)
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• Historical development ______________________
  _________________
• Precursors (19th century)
• 1818 Mary Shelleys Frankenstein
• Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells
• Science fiction (SF) term coined in 1929 and
  commonly accepted by 1930s
• The Golden Age of science fiction (1930s-1940s)
• Celebrates the world of patriarchal
  technological modernity
• Focus on the mechanical, and how machines would
  change the world
• Technology is the essence and basis for
  characterization, plot is subsidiary
• Alien contact (1950s)
• Concern with what is out there
• Gives rise to BEM (bug-eyed-monsters)

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• Historical development ________________________
  _______________
• The New Wave (1960s-1970s)
• Non-mechanical sciences (novels deal with
  psychology, sociology, and how humans relate to
  their world and to change) - 1960s
• Feminist utopian and dystopian narratives -
  1970s
• Cyberpunk (starts in 1980s)
• Technology is portrayed as being limited
• Dystopian visions of technology and progress
• Scientific advances (starts in 1990s)
• New technological developments (nanotechnology,
  AI, bioengineering) become a visible force of the
  field
• The Future at Risk (last decade)
• Technology themes, dystopian visions,
  eco-terrorism, identities, etc.

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• An overview Types and Trends
• _______________________________________
• Hard SF
• Stories set in near future - focus on plausible
  science
• Scientists and their families, and those
  immediately affected by science
• Includes
• Space travel and planetary exploration
• Utopian science fiction
• New Wave
• Stories set in the near future - focus on the
  soft sciences (sociology, psychology, even
  religion)
• Focus on social order and politics (morality in
  focus)
• The imaginative vision for the present
• Literary in nature (speculative fiction)

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• An overview
• Types and Trends _____________________________
  __________
• Science and Sociology
• Social consequences of technical and scientific
  change
• Focus on biotechnology, computers, robots,
  nanotechnology, artificial intelligence
• Cyberpunk
• Technology of the internet and hacker culture
  set in the near future, including elements of
  popular culture
• The Future at Risk
• Social consequences of technical and scientific
  change - focus on disaster or socio-economic
  focus
• Includes
• Disaster fiction (response to natural
  occurrences such as mutation) and apocalyptic end
  of everything
• Dystopia consequences of everyday behavior
  taken to extremes (a negative vision of politics,
  society, economy, and science and technology
  feminist perspectives
• Slide based on handout developed by Bonnie Kunzel

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• An overview
• Types and Trends _____________________________
  __________
• Space opera
• Westerns in Spacesuits on other planets, with
  stereotypical characters
• Including Galactic Empires, Military Science
  Fiction, The Great Conflict, After the Fall
• Inner space and special powers
• Focus on the human mind and its powers, verging
  on fantasy
• Including extrasensory powers, religious and
  messianic fiction
• Slide based on handout developed by Bonnie Kunzel

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• Conclusion
• _______________________________________
• Science fiction is closely related to fantasy
• Imagining an alternative social order and
  society
• Reflecting on the consequences of technological
  modernity
• Reflecting on the consequences of
  techno-scientific progress
• Imagining the limits of humanity and its
  dystopian futures
• Imagining transcendent humanity and its utopian
  advancement