Dystopia

About: Dystopia is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2146 publications have been published within this topic receiving 15163 citations. The topic is also known as: cacotopia.

Science Fiction Roots and Branches: Contemporary Critical Approaches

Abstract: Part 1 Some roots: Victorian science fiction and fantasy: counter projects: William Morris and the science fiction of the eighteen eighties, Darko Suvin H.G.Wells' "The War of the Worlds", Stanislaw Lem "Dracula" adn "The Beetle": imperial and sexual guilt and fear in late Victorian fantasy, Rhys Garnett. Part 2 Some branches: post-war science fiction: scientists in science fiction - enlightenment and after, Patrick Parrinder the world as code and labyrinth: Stanislaw Lem's "Memoirs found in a bathtub", Jerzy Jarzebski the neglected fiction of John Wyndham - "Consider Her Ways", trouble with lichen and web, Thomas D.Clarenson and Alice S.Clarenson Frank Herbert's "Dune" and the discourse of Apocalyptic ecologism in the United States, R.J.Ellis Ursula K.LeGuin and Time's dispossession, Robert M.Philmus. Part 3 Some Branches: contemporary feminist responses: men in feminist science fiction - Marge Piercy, Thomas Berger, and the End of Masculinity, Marleen Bar the destabilization of gender in Vonda MacIntyre's "Superluminal", Jenny Wolmark man-made monsters - Suzy McKee Charnas' "Walk to the End of the World" as Dystopian feminist science fiction, Anne Cranny Francis.

Resources for a Journey of Hope: Raymond Williams on Utopia and Science Fiction

Abstract: Raymond Williams had an enduring interest in science fiction, an interest attested to: first, by two articles specifically addressed to the genre, both of which were eventually published in the journal Science Fiction Studies; second, by a wide range of reference in more familiar texts, such as Culture and Society, The Long Revolution, George Orwell and The Country and the City; and third, by his two ‘future novels’, The Volunteers and The Fight for Manod, the first clearly science-fictional in character, the latter less so. This article will summarise this work, and will also explore how some of Williams’s more general key theoretical concepts – especially structure of feeling and selective tradition – can be applied to the genre. Finally, it will argue that the ‘sociological’ turn, by which Williams sought to substitute description and explanation for judgement and canonisation as the central purposes of analysis, represents a more productive approach to science fiction studies than the kind of prescrip...

The desire for fullness. The fantasmatic logic of modernization discourses in the turn of the 19th century in Łódź

Abstract: The tension inherent in the desire to be modern appeared with all its strength in the discourses surrounding an alien, rapidly developing industrial center in the middle of the rural Kingdom of Poland – the city of Łodź,. In this article, I attempt to reconstruct the logic of press and reportage discourses dealing with this new experience. The press, reportage, and literary discourses concerning the newly established locus of modernity – the city of Łodź – reveal the work of ideological fantasy, a logic of discourse in reportages, essays and novels describing an imaginary diagnosis of reality and a fantasy about its utopian version, as well as the obstacles which always prevent the fulfillment of utopia and even threaten it with a more horrific dystopian vision. Still, the clue lies in the obstacle itself, which is at one and the same time the foundation allowing any utopian project to appear at all, as well a vision of reality.

Visions of China: Political Friendship and Animosities in Southern African Science Fiction

Abstract: Using contemporary science fiction as a barometer, we can see the African imaginary to be seemingly preoccupied with the idea of China and with forecasting various dystopian scenarios regarding the...