Gender and Environment in Science Fiction (Ecocritical Theory and Practice)

Gender and Environment in Science Fiction (Ecocritical Theory and Practice)

by Jill E. Anderson (Contributor), Steve Asselin (Contributor), Stina Attebery (Contributor)

Synopsis

Gender and Environment in Science Fiction focuses on the variety of ways that gender and nature interact in science fiction films and fictions, exploring questions of different realities and posing new ones. Science fiction asks questions to propose other ways of living; it asks what if, and that question is the basis for alternative narratives of ourselves and the world we are a part of. What if humans could terraform planets? What if we could create human-nonhuman hybrids? What if artificial intelligence gains consciousness? What if we could realize kinship with other species through heightened empathy or traumatic experiences? What if we imagine a world without oil? The texts analyzed in this book ask these questions and others, exploring how humans and nonhumans are connected; how nonhuman biologies can offer diverse ways to think about human sex, gender, and sexual orientation; and how interpretive strategies can subvert the messages of older films and written texts.

$108.23

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 238
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 01 Dec 2018

ISBN 10: 1498580572
ISBN 13: 9781498580571

Media Reviews
The fascinating, original essays collected in Gender and Environment in Science Fiction engage a range of important and intersecting critical perspectives while attending to a diverse body of both canonical and relatively unknown and understudied science fiction works. This book is a welcomed expansion of ecocritical gender scholarship via incisive race-, feminist-, and queer-themed analyses of novels, films, comics, and characters-all of which the editors and contributors address with detailed and convincing scholarly insight. -- Eric Otto, Florida Gulf Coast University
This book delivers shrewd analyses of a wonderful and quirky range of SF texts. Barclay and Tidwell situate the project brilliantly, and the collection as a whole will illuminate familiar texts anew and add unfamiliar stories to your high-priority reading and screening queues. -- Andrew Hageman, Luther College
Wasp Woman, fembots, bears in pants. A motley crowd of creatures and theories show up to this campy, monstrous, intellectual gathering, exposing the interrelations between science studies, ecomaterialism, disability studies, feminist theory, queer inhumanisms, cross-species kinships, Woman and Beast. Winding through a fantastic array of SF films and SF fiction, this important collection maps the intersections between gender studies and environmental studies as it calls us to craft livable futures. Don't miss it! -- Stacy Alaimo, author of Exposed: Environmental Politics and Pleasures in Posthuman Times
Gender and Environment in Science Fiction emerges at the intersection of gender and sexuality studies, ecocriticism, critical race and empire studies, disability studies, animal studies, media theory, utopianism, posthumanism, and more to become an instant classic in the study of science fiction. With a two-century span covering critical mainstays of the genre like Mary Shelley, Octavia E. Butler, and Kim Stanley Robinson alongside unexpected visitors like Scarlett Johansson, the Wasp Woman, Mad Max, and Smokey the Bear, Tidwell and Barclay have gathered together an absolutely essential collection of sharp, pointed, and wickedly clever scholarly interventions that chart exciting new directions for the field. -- Gerry Canavan, Associate Professor of 20th and 21st Century Literature, Marquette University, author of Octavia E. Butler
Author Bio
Bridgitte Barclay is associate professor of English and co-director of the gender studies minor at Aurora University. Christy Tidwell is associate professor of English and humanities at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.