Parables of Freedom and Narrative Logics

Positions and Presuppositions in Science Fiction and Utopianism
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-80079-047-6
Verlag: Peter Lang Ltd. International Academic Publishers

Medienkombination, Englisch, Band 23, 666 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 1028 g

Reihe: Ralahine Utopian Studies

This major two-volume collection presents Darko Suvin’s critical meditations on science fiction and utopia from the late 1960s through the early years of the new millennium, excluding only the landmark monographs Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, Victorian Science Fiction, and Defined by a Hollow. From essential programmatic statements charting the parabolic logic of science fiction and establishing the parameters of a theoretically supple and rigorously historical SF criticism to confrontations with both a postmodernist abdication of politics and a «neutral» sociology of literature, these writings reflect the evolving thought of the preeminent contemporary theorist of science fiction. Underpinned by a method of heretical cognition and the steadfast insistence of utopian possibility, the varied essays, interviews, poems, and polemics presented here—encompassing four decades of sustained thought on the topic—offer up the affirmation of freedom as the truest horizon of science fiction.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Suvin, Darko

Smith, Eric

Weitere Mitwirkende

Baccolini, Raffaella

Balasopoulos, Antonis

Fischer, Joachim

Griffin, Michael J.

Jacobs, Naomi

Kelly, Michael G.

Moylan, Tom

Wegner, Phillip E.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

CONTENTS: Volume I – It Ain’t Necessarily So: An Introduction – Preliminary Theses on Allegory (1977) – The Moon as a Mirror to Man: Or, Lessons of Selenography (1969) – Significant Themes in Soviet Criticism of Science Fiction to 1965 (1969) – The SF Novel in 1969 (1970) – Against Common Sense: Levels of SF Criticism (1972) – A, B, and C: The Significant Context of SF: A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (1973) – Four Worries on Science Fiction Contexts (1970–1975) – James Blish, 1921–1975 (1975) – On Philip K. Dick – On Ursula K. Le Guin – On the Strugatsky Brothers – For a Social Theory of Science Fiction: Programmatic Reflections (1977–1988) – (with Marc Angenot) Editorial of Science-Fiction Studies (1979) – (with Marc Angenot) Not Only But Also: Reflections on Cognitions and Ideology in SF and SF Criticism (1979) – Three World Paradigms for SF: Asimov, Yefremov, and Lem (1979–1993) – Pilgrim Award Speech for the SF Research Association (1979) – A Brief Valedictory on Stepping Down (1981) – Volume II – Playful Cognizing, or Technical Errors in Harmonyville: The SF of Johanna and Günter Braun (1981 and 1987) – The Science-Fiction Novel as Epic Narration: For a Fusion of «Formal» and «Sociological» Analysis (1980–1985) – (with Eike Barmeyer and Dieter Hasselblatt) A Discussion of Stanislaw Lem’s SF Radio-Drama Do You Exist Mr Johns? (1982) – Narrative Logic, Ideological Domination, and the Range of Science Fiction: A Hypothesis with a Test Case (1982) – Science Fiction: Metaphor, Parable, and Chronotope (With the Bad Conscience of Reaganism) (1984) – On «Post-Modernist» Political Impotence and the Horizons of Fiction and SF: A Response to Professor Fekete’s «Five Theses» (1988) – Science Fiction: A Basic Sketch (1987–1994) – Utopia in the Asian Eighties: Six Songlets (1983–1988) – Visions Off Yamada (1988) – Thinking Worlds of a Liminal Shintoist Cybermarxist: Five Interviews (1987–1995) – Counter-Projects: William Morris and the SF of the 1880s (1988) – We’ve Met the Aliens and They Are Us: Weinbaum’s Parables of Class (1993–2010) – Notes and Memories on Science Fiction – With Sober, Estranged Eyes (1998) – SF Parables of Mutation and Cloning as/and Cognition (2002).

Über Autor(innen)

Darko Suvin is Professor Emeritus at McGill University and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is the author of numerous books and hundreds of essays on topics in utopianism and science fiction, comparative literature, dramaturgy, theory of literature, theatre and cultural theory. He is also the author of three volumes of poetry.Eric D. Smith is Professor of English at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is the author of Globalization, Utopia, and Postcolonial Science Fiction: New Maps of Hope and many essays on postcolonial literature, Modern British literature, and popular cinema.