Tesis sobre el tema "Science fiction"

Informationist Science Fiction theory provides a way of analysing science fiction texts and narratives in order to demonstrate on an informational basis the uniqueness of science fiction proper as a mode of fiction writing. The theoretical framework presented can be applied to all types of written texts, including non-fictional texts. In "Informationist Science Fiction Theory and Informationist Science Fiction" the author applies the theoretical framework and its specific methods and principles to various contemporary science fiction works, including works by William Gibson, Neal Stephenson and Vernor Vinge. The theoretical framework introduces a new informational theoretic re-framing of existing science fiction literary theoretic posits such as Darko Suvin's novum, the mega-text as conceived of by Damien Broderick, and the work of Samuel R Delany in investigating the subjunctive mood in SF. An informational aesthetics of SF proper is established, and the influence of analytic philosophy - especially modal logic - is investigated. The materialist foundations of the metaphysical outlook of SF proper is investigated with a view to elucidating the importance of the relationship between scientific materialism and SF. SF is presented as The Fiction of Veridical, Counterfactual and Heterogeneous Information.

Master of Philosophy (MPhil)
Informationist Science Fiction theory provides a way of analysing science fiction texts and narratives in order to demonstrate on an informational basis the uniqueness of science fiction proper as a mode of fiction writing. The theoretical framework presented can be applied to all types of written texts, including non-fictional texts. In "Informationist Science Fiction Theory and Informationist Science Fiction" the author applies the theoretical framework and its specific methods and principles to various contemporary science fiction works, including works by William Gibson, Neal Stephenson and Vernor Vinge. The theoretical framework introduces a new informational theoretic re-framing of existing science fiction literary theoretic posits such as Darko Suvin's novum, the mega-text as conceived of by Damien Broderick, and the work of Samuel R Delany in investigating the subjunctive mood in SF. An informational aesthetics of SF proper is established, and the influence of analytic philosophy - especially modal logic - is investigated. The materialist foundations of the metaphysical outlook of SF proper is investigated with a view to elucidating the importance of the relationship between scientific materialism and SF. SF is presented as The Fiction of Veridical, Counterfactual and Heterogeneous Information.

L'elaborato descrive e riflette su un'esperienza CLIL svolta in due classi terze di un Liceo scientifico siciliano, esperienza che si è svolta attraverso la visione di alcuni video in lingua inglese o senza audio come fase di globalità, attraverso alcuni esercizi in fase di analisi, attraverso dei giochi in quella di sintesi: il tutto, sempre facendo parlare gli studenti in lingua. Il fatto di svolgere il tutto in due classi ha permesso di studiare due gruppi disomogenei, accomunate dall'insegnante di scienze ma con docenti di lingua differenti per approccio e metodologia.

Science fiction och populärmedia är en stor del av vardagen i dagens samhälle. Elever konsumerar den typen av media på egen tid och söker sig till den för underhållning utanför skolans väggar, möjligen utan att reflektera över vad det är som konsumeras. Den här studien fokuserar på science fiction och hur de välproducerade medierna tas emot och reflekteras kring av konsumenterna, som i det här fallet är elever. Finns det möjlighet för lärare inom fysik eller någon annan naturvetenskap att utnyttja det intresse och den pseudovetenskap, som dessa medier kan förmedla, i skolan? Elever har en bild av vad fysik är i skolans värld efter hur fysikundervisningen är upplagd och syftet för arbetet är att undersöka möjliga sätt som de olika världarna kan mötas. Det riktar sig mot att utvärdera en undersökning gjord i en elevgrupp bestående av 6 fysikstuderande elever på gymnasiet. Kärnan i undersökningen är att se vilka typer av diskussioner som uppstår efter visning av ett eller flera filmklipp från populära spelfilmer, innehållande fysiska moment. De fysiska momenten är sekvenser som kan förklaras med den fysik vi har idag eller så kan det vara orimliga sekvenser som inte går att förklara. Eftersom den här typen av media ofta bygger på att skapa känslor hos konsumenten så förekommer det att verklighetsförankringen ofta försvinner. Det teoretiska ramverk som undersökningen håller sig till utgår i konceptet ägandeskap av lärande och syftar till hur elever utvärderar sina egna idéer och tar ansvar för att följa upp tidigare funderingar eller frågor som de själva uttryckt. På så vis kan eleverna själva förhoppningsvis se värdet av kritiskt tänkande och även att eleverna kan minnas vad de lärt sig över en längre tid.
Science fiction or rather popular media is a major part of everyday life in today's society. Students consume this media in their spare time and watch it for entertainment, possibly without even reflecting over the consumed content. This paper will focus on science fiction and how the well-produced media is received and reflected upon by the consumers, in this case upper-secondary physics students. Is there an opportunity for physics teachers or other natural sciences teachers to make good use of the interest and the pseudo science, that these media can convey, at school? Pupils have an idea of what physics is in school considering how physics education is laid out and the purpose of this work is to explore possible ways that these different worlds can meet. The work is aimed at evaluating a one hour session done with a student group consisting of 6 physics students in high school. The essence of the survey is to see what types of discussions occur after viewing one or more movie clips containing different physical phenomena. The physical events are shown in movieclips and can be explained by the physics we have today or there may be unrealistic events that cannot be explained. This kind of popular media is often based on creating emotional connections with the consumer which can take away the connection to reality and the real world physics. The theoretical framework that the study was based on is the concept of ownership of learning, this aims to consider how students evaluate their own ideas and take responsibility for following up on previous ideas or questions that they themselves expressed. That way the students hopefully find value in critical thinking and the retention of knowledge might increase.

Le but de cette these est de montrer qu'a partir de 1960, une nouvelle science-fiction a emerge aux usa, en grande-bretagne, et que ce mouvement s'est prolonge en france dans les annees 70. Les romans retenus ont ete publies a partir de 1960 et jusqu'en 1973 pour les pays angloamericains; puis entre 1973 et 1980 pour la france. Cette s. F. Emergente est caracterisee par un renouvellement de la thematique traditionnelle et l'apparition d'une thematique nouvelle. Ces nouvelles s. F. Ont eu une volonte commune : se referer au present pour se rapprocher de la litterature generale. Elles ont subi des transformations dont la plus interessante est probablement leur engagement dans une forme moderne d'humanisme. Les romans retenus dans le corpus temoignent du phenomene de transculturation que m. Mead et t. Roszak ont mis en evidence. L'emergence de cette nouvelle thematique a ete justifiee et expliquee en se referant a l'utilisation traditionnelle des themes, a l'histoire du genre, aux transformations politiques, socio-economiques et culturelles qui se sont produites dans le monde occidental au debut des annees 60. Enfin, on a tente de percevoir quels etaient les contenus et les limites de cette nouvelle s. F. Dont tous les apports n'ont pas survecu dans les annees 80
The purpose of this thesis is to show that a new form of science fiction came into being in the united states and in great britain in 1960 and that, in france, this movement lasted well into the seventies. The novels that have been selected were published between 1960 and 1973 for anglo-american countries and between 1973 and 1980 for france. This emerging s. F. Was characterised by a revival of the old conventional themes ans the apparition of new topics. These new forms of s. F. Shared a common aim : to use the present times in order to break through separation between general literature and s. F. . They underwent changes, the most remarkable of wich was without doubt this commitment to a modern form of humanism. The novels selected in the corpus show the transculturation which m. Mead and t. Roszak highlighted. The emergence of this new themes has been justified and explained with reference to the conventional use of topics, the history of the genre and the political socio-economic and cultural changes which took place in the western world in the early sixties. Finally, the author attempted to comprehend the content and the limits of this new form of s. F. , not all of their contributions have survived into the eighties

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to investigate the female reader of science fiction literature, a genre by tradition dominated by men. Through qualitative interviews with seven female science fiction readers, the relation between the reading and the readers’ lives, as well as their concepts of the science fiction genre and the community of science fiction readers, was examined. The main theoretical framework used for the analysis was Yvonne Hirdman’s gender theory, Judith Butler’s concept of identity and Louise M. Rosenblatt’s transaction theory. Science fiction literature offers the female readers an opportunity to consider ethical and political issues, but it also gives them entertainment and experiences beyond the ordinary. Even though science fiction generally is described as progressive, the female readers often find it stereotyped in its gender representations. Being a woman reading science fiction means being an outsider in the science fiction community, as well as to women in general. The choice to read science fiction is therefore highly conscious, reflecting the respondents’ identities and their views of themselves as independent, open-minded and intellectual individuals.

Detta kandidatarbete undersöker science fiction, en av de större och vanligast använda genrerna inom medier såsom spel, film och litteratur, genom att studera dess undergrupper, de så kallade subgenrerna. Dessa är specialiserade versioner av genren i fråga och använder den inom vissa förutsatta ramar, exempelvis hur samhället ser ut eller vilken typ av teknologi det huvudsakliga fokuset kretsar runt. Genom att studera hur subgenrer är beskrivna i The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction kan man avgöra att de består av sex punkter: plats, tidsperiod, karaktärer, teknologi, narrativ och visuell estetik. Dessa punkter har använts som ramverk för att utveckla en ny subgenre; Mystech, där scenarier utspelar sig i vad som kan ses som en typisk fantasyvärld med magi och monster, men där dessa egentligen bara är teknologi majoriteten av de påverkade inte förstår sig på. För att demonstrera Mystech har två olika miljöer utvecklats, både i bild och skriven form. Dessa är två mycket olika skådeplatser för scenarier att berättas i men som trots sina olikheter har nog med faktorer gemensamt för att kunna klassificeras som delar av samma subgenre.
Dess populäritet är tydlig, men hur spridd är användingen av science fiction i dagens spelindustri? Hur kan man använda sagda populäritet för att slå igenom som utvecklare utan att försvinna i mängden? Detta arbetet studerar subgenrer, specialiserade undergrupper till science fiction som tar upp just de områden du vill utnyttja för din projektidé och hur du kan utveckla egna sådana om du inte finner vad du söker bland de befintliga.
Hampus Juhlin telnr. 076-1853950 Pontus Novén telnr. 073-4448595

This study examines the claims for a privileged status for the language of science fiction. The analysis of a series of invented languages, including 'nadsat', 'newspeak' and 'Babel-17', establishes that beneath these constructions lie deep-seated misconceptions about how language works. It is shown that the various theories of language, implicitly or explicitly expressed by writers and critics concerned with invented languages and neologism in science fiction, embody a mistaken view about the relation between language and the imagination. Chapter two demonstrates, with particular reference to the treatment of time and mind, that the themes on which science fiction most likes to dwell, reflect very closely the concerns of philosophy, and as such, are particularly amenable to the analytical methods of linguistic philosophy. This approach shows that what science fiction 'imagines' often turns out to be a product of the deceptive qualities of the grammar of language itself. The paradoxes of a pseudo-philosophical nature, in which science fiction invariably finds itself entangled, are particularly well exemplified in the work of Philip K. Dick. Chapter Three suggests that by exploiting the logically impossible, by making a virtue of the tricks and conventions which have become science fiction's stigmata (time-travel, telepathy, etc.), Dick indicates a means of overcoming the genre's current problems concerning form and seriousness. In conclusion it is demonstrated through the work of J. G. Ballard, that any attempt to throw off science fiction's 'pulp' conventions is likely to lead the genre further into the literary wilderness.

[Truncated abstract] This thesis makes three assertions. The first is that the sublime is a principal pleasure of science fiction. The second is that the conditions for the emergence of both the sublime and science fiction lie in the modern developments of technology, mass economy and imperialism. Maritime and optical technologies; the imagination that accompanied imperialism; and the influence of capitalism furnished the cognition by which the pleasures of both science fiction and the sublime came into being. The third claim is that a historical conception of the sublime, one that changes according to the different circumstances in which it appears, offers privileged insights onto changes within the genre. To make such extensive claims it has been necessary to make a cognitive map of the development of both the sublime and science fiction. This map reaches from the Ancient Romans, Lucian and Longinus; to Thomas More, Jonathan Swift, Johannes Kepler, Voltaire and Immanuel Kant; to Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. This thesis then examines how the features of these fictions mutate in the twentieth-century fiction of A.E. van Vogt, Clifford Simak, Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke, Ivan Yefremov, the Strugatsky brothers, J.G. Ballard, Pamela Zoline, Ursula Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre, Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, Stephen Baxter, William Gibson, Ken MacLeod and Stanislaw Lem. These writers are considered in their own specific periods, and in their national contexts, as they create pleasures that are contingent upon changes to their own worlds. In representing these changes, their fictions defamiliarise the anxieties of the reading subject. They transcend the contradictions of their times with a sublime that betrays its own conditions of transcendence. The deployment of the sublime in these texts offers a moment of critical possibility, as it betrays the fantasies born of a subject's relation to their world

Le texte de science-fiction est étudié selon les grandes divisions de la rhétorique classique. Invention (le contenu) : la SF n'a pas de thème propre, sinon celui de l'individu face au pouvoir; le contenu d'un texte de SF est un ensemble de métaphores s'organisant en allégorie. Composition (structure): un texte de SF s'organise selon les principes du cut up, de l'ellipse, du puzzle et du suspense. Élocution (stylistique) : étude du vocabulaire (tres étendu), de la syntaxe (réduite) et des figures de style (essentiellement des figures de pensée, et non des figures de mots comme c'est le cas en littérature classique). Action (metatexte) : étude des titres, remerciements, épigraphes, premières et quatrièmes de couverture. S’y ajoute une partie définition : la SF est définie dans ses rapports ou oppositions avec la littérature, la paralittérature, la science, le fantastique et l'anticipation
The study of science-fiction follows the principal division of classical rhetoric. Invention (content) : science fiction has no theme of its own except that of the individual in the face of authority, the context of a science fiction text is a collection of metaphors arranged under the form of allegory. Composition (structure): a science fiction text often consists of various literary devices, such as cut up, ellipsis, jigsaws, suspense. Elocution (stylistics): the study of large range of vocabulary, of a reduced syntax and stylistics devices (mostly figures of thought not of word as is the case in classical literature). Action (metatext): the study of titles, acknowledgements, first and fourth covers pages. Here, one must add a definition: science fiction is definite by is relationship or opposition with literature, non-mainstream literature, science, the literature of the fantastic and anticipation

Notre travail qui a porte sur l'etude de romans de science-fiction, ecrits entre les annees 30 et les annees 80, a permis de mettre en evidence certains themes recurrents concernant le corps feminin tel qu'il y est represente, figure et defigure : travailles par une tradition religieuse et mythologique, les recits d s. F. Inscrivent le corps feminin comme produit d'une "machination" dans laquelle font bon menage, le sexe et la technologie, la science et la pornographie. Symbole de la reification extreme de la femme, son corps y devient produit industriel soumis aux lois du marche. Sur la scene actuelle du complexe technologico-scientifique, c'est le feminin comme tel et sa specificite ancestrale, la capacite "naturelle" de reproduction, qui est supplante par la possibilite d'un engendrement qui se ferait non seulement sans lui, mais aussi bien sans sexe. Lire ces recits a la lumiere de ce complexe, c'est s'interroger sur le passage d'anciennes a de novuelles configurations imaginaires et symboliques, ou les roles se jouent sans reference a une identite sexuelle, biologiquement et culturellement determinee, enterinant peut-etre la mort de celle-ci. Fiction, histoire, mythologie, science,; revelent chacune en leur langage, la meme interrogation devant le semblable, differemment sexue, qui est, a tout jamais un autre
Our work; based ont he study of science-fiction novels written between the thirties and the eighties, examines specific examples of some ways in which woman's body is presented, figured and disfigured, explores the impact of a religious and mythological tradition ont he science-fiction literature. Woman's body, just like an industrail product, is submitted to the market laws, symbol of woman's reification, result of a "machination", sex and technology, science and pornography being linked together. The ancestral feminine "natural" reproductive capacity is supplanted by the possibility of asexual reproduction. New symbolical and imaginary configurations are analysed in the light of recent research. Science and technology have profound effects on sex roles and definitions. Fiction, history, mythology and science, in their own language, ask the same questions about similitudes and differences between the sexes

This is a collection of essays revolving around concepts pertinent to my current visual arts practice, centering on a deconstruction of personal narrative mythologies. What is generated is a web of connection that spans Narrative Modes, Science Fiction, the use of Lines and Drawing, the Digital and Space and Time. Through this interweaving of topics, I am beginning the process of rebuilding the structure of a personal story for the future.

This thesis includes an original science-fiction novella entitled "The Hunted" and accompanying commentary which illustrates how anthropological fiction can use characterization, setting, and conflict to build effective inter-subjective models.

Science fiction films may be viewed as existing as threads within a web, and at the same time constituting the web. The metaphor is apt: texts and contexts and their relationship have a difficult accommodation with each other, an interdependent and dynamic relationship. The text is a thread in the web, as are elements of context, yet the threads are in a symbiotic and constantly changing relationship with each other, as the web is constantly in a state of renewal and change. At the same time, the text itself is a web, as are the various contexts. The threads are both ephemeral and fleeting, while incredibly strong. This thesis is about the polysemy of science fiction film: its subject is the films of the fifties that belong to the genre of science fiction. But the area of study began as an investigation of the science in science fiction films; the way in which films construct that science, the end result of that construction and the totality of the discourse of science in relation to other discourses of power and influence. The investigation of those issues involves a multi-layered investigation into science fiction, in a similar way to Tulloch and Alvarado's approach to the Dr Who television series.1 Approaching science fiction films from a perspective of genre, as in chapter one, uncovers a set of arguments about the science in science fiction, as well as establishing the global nature of some science fiction. These concerns lead into the discussion in chapter two of the social and historical context of the fifties, specifically in the US. Science plays a major role in these contexts, in the sense of the importance of science in creating these contexts (from this perspective) as well as the effects of the application of this science. But the historical and cultural contexts tend to suggest that science fiction films are in large part both a response to the social and historical context, and also create that context. This would not be quite accurate: the production of many science fiction films mobilise other arguments, arguments relating to the industry of Hollywood, and the specific industrial context that gave rise to some very financially successful science fiction films, as well as some films where the budget was good for a few days filming. Science and technology are sometimes important elements in this industrial context as well. Part II traces the nature of science in these films, using the contexts in Part I to anchor the science and its implications and effects. Foregrounded is the debate in which science is both key player and, in many cases, antagonist. The debate is traced and the various representations of science and its nature are tracked and highlighted. Science can cause change, by virtue of its nature of uncovering superstition, but the worth or desirability of that change is open to question. The control of science is a related issue. The thesis examines science at a period that saw the efflorescence of science fiction films. The examination of those films tells us a great deal about the concerns of the time, as well as the science that figures so powerfully in the webs of culture of the fifties.

Science fiction films may be viewed as existing as threads within a web, and at the same time constituting the web. The metaphor is apt: texts and contexts and their relationship have a difficult accommodation with each other, an interdependent and dynamic relationship. The text is a thread in the web, as are elements of context, yet the threads are in a symbiotic and constantly changing relationship with each other, as the web is constantly in a state of renewal and change. At the same time, the text itself is a web, as are the various contexts. The threads are both ephemeral and fleeting, while incredibly strong. This thesis is about the polysemy of science fiction film: its subject is the films of the fifties that belong to the genre of science fiction. But the area of study began as an investigation of the science in science fiction films; the way in which films construct that science, the end result of that construction and the totality of the discourse of science in relation to other discourses of power and influence. The investigation of those issues involves a multi-layered investigation into science fiction, in a similar way to Tulloch and Alvarado's approach to the Dr Who television series.1 Approaching science fiction films from a perspective of genre, as in chapter one, uncovers a set of arguments about the science in science fiction, as well as establishing the global nature of some science fiction. These concerns lead into the discussion in chapter two of the social and historical context of the fifties, specifically in the US. Science plays a major role in these contexts, in the sense of the importance of science in creating these contexts (from this perspective) as well as the effects of the application of this science. But the historical and cultural contexts tend to suggest that science fiction films are in large part both a response to the social and historical context, and also create that context. This would not be quite accurate: the production of many science fiction films mobilise other arguments, arguments relating to the industry of Hollywood, and the specific industrial context that gave rise to some very financially successful science fiction films, as well as some films where the budget was good for a few days filming. Science and technology are sometimes important elements in this industrial context as well. Part II traces the nature of science in these films, using the contexts in Part I to anchor the science and its implications and effects. Foregrounded is the debate in which science is both key player and, in many cases, antagonist. The debate is traced and the various representations of science and its nature are tracked and highlighted. Science can cause change, by virtue of its nature of uncovering superstition, but the worth or desirability of that change is open to question. The control of science is a related issue. The thesis examines science at a period that saw the efflorescence of science fiction films. The examination of those films tells us a great deal about the concerns of the time, as well as the science that figures so powerfully in the webs of culture of the fifties.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Film, Media and Cultural Studies
Full Text

This thesis sets out to examine the relationship between science fiction and its conditions of production, specifically interrogating the genre's articulations of the ideology of modernity as progress. Sf has been characterized variously as a characteristically useful critical engagement with the ideologies of its context and as wholly ideological at the level of form, relying on the authority of a scientific episteme in its "cognitive estrangements," while not obligated to operate within the boundaries of this episteme. As such, the genre is unparalleled in its capacity to articulate ideologies under the guise of a putatively neutral science and reason. However, this same formal action places the genre in the unique position of being able to utilize the authority of a scientific episteme to re-evaluate the putative neutrality of that very scientific episteme. As a result, this study concludes that while the genre's reliance on the external authority of science in "cognitively" organizing its estrangements may make it particularly conducive to articulating ideological technoscience and the ideology of modernity as progress, the genre is characteristically ambivalent in this respect, both at the level of form and as a result of the incongruities between form and narrative. To support my thesis I engage a number of science fictional texts, focusing on Golden Age sf of the mid-20th century, while also branching out into explorations of a variety of 20th and 21st century sf texts, including texts from the pulp era, New Wave, cyberpunk, and post-singularity sf. I analyze within the effects of the conceptual mapping of society in terms of the natural sciences in sf, as well as the ambivalent presence of the robot as a megatextual motif, exploring the relationship of these to the ideology of modernity as progress and the post-scarcity fantasy of global mass consumption prosperity.
B.A.
Bachelors
Arts and Humanities
English - Literature

This thesis brings together for the first time the legal humanities and feminist legal theory in an interrogation of legal personhood. Originality can be found in the consideration of the relationship between law and science fiction. This thesis considers the question of what makes a legal person. Proponents of feminism have highlighted that legal personhood is predicated upon the bodies of healthy white heterosexual males. As a consequence embodiment becomes central to understanding whom or what can become legal persons. In this thesis Ngaire Naffine's (1997, 2003, 2009, 2011) understanding of the embodied legal person is used as a starting point and applied to a number of different contemporary and potential entities including human-level artificial intelligence, admixed embryos and elective amputees. Adopting a law and culture approach three different science fiction films are used to anchor this work. 77w Matrix trilogy (1999, 2003a, 2003b) is used to highlight the relationship between embodiment and legal personhood. Bladerunner (1982) is used to exemplify the relationship between legal personhood and the conflated concepts of rationality and masculinity. District 9 (2009) and elective amputees are used to demonstrate the relationship between the body, rationality and legal personhood. Science fiction is presented as prophetic and allegorical; forewarning of the possibilities associated with potential entities but also serving as a reminder of the injustices of contemporary and historical times. These themes are drawn together through the proposition of a new approach to legal personhood; an approach based on multiple modes of embodied experience, diversity and heterogeneity.

Cette dissertation vise à une comparaison des littératures de sciences-fiction canadienne anglaise et canadienne française, principalement sous forme de roman ou de nouvelles publiées dans des anthologies. Elle consiste en une introduction générale du phénomène de la science-fiction en général et au Canada. Elle commence par dresser un historique de l'émergence de la science-fiction au Canada, des facteurs ayant favorisé son apparition et des conditions de sa création. Cet historique est suivi d'un examen des relations ambivalentes entre la science-fiction canadienne et la science. Une section de ce chapitre est consacrée aux voyages dans le temps et à leur crédibilité croissante dans le monde scientifique; nous constatons l'absence presque toatle de ce thème dans la science-fiction canadienne française, probablement influencée par une vision linéaire de l'histoire. La dernière partie se concentre tout particulièrement sur les protagonistes des deux courant de science fiction canadienne et des traits qui les différencient ou les unissent dans leurs attitudes et leurs vues philosophiques, plus particulièrement en relation avec les tendances déjà présentes dans la littérature et la société canadienne.

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.

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.

The subject of this dissertation is the introduction and reception of science fiction literature in Sweden 1950–1968. Apart from considerations on science fiction as a genre and market category, and a brief survey of science fiction published in Sweden before the year 1950, the dissertation scrutinizes the Swedish publishers’ attempts at introducing both domestic and translated science fiction, the reception of the genre in Swedish literary criticism, the magazines Häpna! (1954–1966) and Galaxy (1958–1960), and the foundation of a Swedish science fiction fan culture. Science fiction was established as a category on the Swedish book market in the early 1950s, with several attempts to launch single works or whole series of mainly translated fiction. Between 1952 and 1968, roughly 30 publishing firms published over 160 books marketed as science fiction, with an apex in the late 1950s. Few publishers were successful, however, and most of the series were discontinued within just a few years of their inception. Meanwhile, in Swedish literary criticism, science fiction was increasingly perceived as a deficient form of commercial entertainment. A few of the exceptions were Harry Martinson (1904–1978), with his space epic Aniara (1956), and the translated author Ray Bradbury (b. 1920), who came to be considered as surpassing the boundaries of the genre. With the magazine Häpna!, a Swedish science fiction fan culture was contrived, with fans forming clubs, arranging conventions, disseminating fanzines, and, eventually, starting their own publishing firms and magazines. In the Swedish literary system, science fiction became a semi-separate literary circuit of production, distribution and consumption, and, concurrently, a growing autonomous subfield of cultural production, with its own forms of specific symbolic capital, doxa, and instances of consecration.

This thesis contains four stories of fantasy and science fiction. Four story lengths are represented: the short short ("Dragon Lovers"), the shorter short story ("Homecoming"), the longer short story ("Shadow Mistress"), and the novel ("Sword of Albruch," excerpted here).

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Pädag. Hochsch.--Dresden--Universität, 1993. Titre de soutenance : Science-fiction-Elemente in der Kinderliteratur der DDR in den siebziger und achtziger Jahren.
Bibliogr. p. 111-134.

This thesis concerns the intersections of law and technology, referred to here as ‘technical legality’. It argues that reflection on technical legality reveals the mythic of modernity. The starting point for the argument is that the orthodox framing of technology by law – the ‘law and technology enterprise’ – does not comprehend its own speculative jurisdiction – that is, it fails to realise its oracle orientation towards imagining the future. In this science fiction as the modern West’s mythform, as the repository for projections of technological futures, is recognised as both the law and technology enterprise’s wellspring and cipher. What is offered in this thesis is a more thorough exploration of technical legality through taking science fiction seriously. This seriousness results in two implications for the understanding of technical legality. The first implication is that the anxieties and fantasies that animate the calling forth of law by technology become clearer. Science fiction operates as a window into the cultural milieu that frames law-making moments. In locating law-making events – specifically the making of the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 (Cth) and the Motor Car Act 1909 (Vic) – with the clone ‘canon’ in science fiction (specifically Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)) and H.G. Wells’ scientific romances, what is offered is a much richer understanding of how the cultural framing of technology becomes law than that provided by the ‘pragmatic’ positivism of the law and technology enterprise. The second implication arises from the excess that appears at the margins of the richer analyses. Exploring technical legality through science fiction does not remain within the epistemological frame. Each of the analyses gestures towards something essential about technical legality. The law and technology enterprise is grounded on the modern myth, which is also the myth of modernity – Frankenstein. It tells a story of monstrous technology, vulnerable humanity and saving law. The analyses of the Prohibition of Human Cloning Act 2002 (Cth) and the Motor Car Act 1909 (Vic) show that this narrative is terrorised, that the saving law turns out to be the monster in disguise; that the law called forth by technology is in itself technological. In extended readings of two critically acclaimed science fictions, Frank Herbert’s Dune cycle (1965–83) and the recent television series Battlestar Galactica (2003–10), the essential commitments of technological law are exposed. Dune as technical legality makes clear that technological law is truly monstrous, for behind its positivism and sovereignty its essence is with the alchemy of death and time. Battlestar Galactica as technical legality reduces further the alchemical properties of technical law. Battlestar Galactica moves the metaphysical highlight to the essence of technology and very nearly ends with Heidegger’s demise of Being in ‘Enframing’: monstrous technology and monstrous law reveal a humanity that cannot be saved. However, at the very moment of this fall, Battlestar Galactica collapses the metaphysical frame, affirming technological Being-in-the-world over empty ordering, life over death. This free responsibility to becoming that emerges from Battlestar Galactica reunites technical legality with the mythic of modernity. The modern denial of myth, which allowed Frankenstein to narrate technical legality, has been challenged. Free responsibility to becoming means a confidence with myths; it clears the way for the telling of new stories about law and technology.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Griffith Law School
Arts, Education and Law
Full Text

This thesis examines a selection of original SF or SF-inflected texts written in Arabic from the 1960s to the present day. It is a thematic study, considering their presentation of and attitudes to science and technology, utopias and ideal societies and religion. Although some critics attempt to figure SF as a continuation of the Thousand and One Nights fantastical tradition and the mirabile literature of the Middle Ages, Arabic science fiction, as an essentially modern genre, traces its earliest origins to the late 1950s in Egypt. It has experienced several sudden efflorescences during the following decades in the texts of a handful of authors, most of whom are Egyptian. In the past ten years, following a 2006 seminal essay by Iraqi-German engineer and SF critic Achmed Khammas on “The Almost Complete Lack of the Element of ‘Futureness’”, media and academic interest in Arabic science fiction has burgeoned, with both established (Ahmed Khalid Towfik) and new (Noura Noman) authors publishing in the genre in the past five years. In light of the relative lack of criticism of the Arabic corpus, this thesis seeks to begin the project of conducting a full critical study through a reading of selected texts from the 1960s to the present day, the majority of which have not previously been translated into English. The approach taken is broadly sociological, examining the texts in the light of three themes outlined above – science, ideal societies and the treatment of religion - that frequently frame SF criticism in English.

For the past decade or so, a shaky aura of respectability has surrounded the genre of science fiction. Recognition as a branch of literature was late coming to what was, and to some extent still is, a confused form of fiction. Critics are still unable to agree on a definition of science fiction; they are no longer even sure what the letters 'SF' should stand for; they argue about its role, relevance and historical origins, and debate its relationship with 'mainstream' literature. What they do seem to agree on, however, is that science fiction is a form of popular literature that offers an alternative approach to the common concerns of the dominant mode of narrative - realist fiction. Having been relegated to the periphery of 'literature' for so long, the realm of science fiction has been largely unmediated by academic criticism and there is still a tendency for some literary critics to dismiss science fiction as childish, escapist and generally unimportant. Kirpal Singh (1983) explains: Various factors have conspired - and I use the term deliberately - to create problems for sf. As is usual in most areas of human intercourse whenever an apparently new and vigorous subject offers itself for exploration, human beings are wont to put up resistance. The literary fraternity ... have time and again given scant attention to sf. Some critics see sf as an inferior form of literary expression and so do not think it worth their time and energy; sf in their minds is associated with Superman, Bug-Eyed Monsters, and Spaceships. They find all this irritating, or at best amusing. There is a tendency - very often expressed in no uncertain terms - to regard sf as juvenile ... not quite the thing for adults and certainly not suitable for the literary critic. (p.106) Not only science fiction, however, has suffered at the hands of literary critics as has been indicated by Stephen Knight in his book, Form and Ideology in Crime Fiction (1980): Literary criticism has shied away from commercial success as a ground for taking a book seriously. Literary critical skills have not been used to study the interests and needs of mass society: they have been turned inwards in a fully ideological way to gratify and ratify the taste - and needs to - of the highly educated minority who validate their position by displaying a grasp of complicated cultural artifacts. (p.2) Marc Angenot has described 'paraliterature' as occupying "the space outside the literary enclosure, as a forbidden, taboo, and perhaps degraded product; against which the 'self' of literature is forged". (in Parrinder, 1980, p.46) Despite the discriminatory 'high' versus 'low' literary dichotomy, it is becoming less necessary to justify the study of popular literary forms. Recent years have seen a stretching of boundaries resulting in a proliferation of essays that address various forms of popular literature, science fiction included, by people from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives. Most of these studies have approached popular literature as bodies of fictional works with similar themes. They typically focus on such textual elements as plot formula, narrative, characterisation, style and symbolism. Derek Longhurst ( 1989) identifies "a range of largely formalist strategies designed to demonstrate that unlike 'literature', popular fiction was standardized and formulaic, a debased coinage of little 'moral' value, distorting the truths of 'lived experience', time-bound rather than addressing the transhistorical and universal territory of the 'human condition"'. (p.1) Such strategies ignore the actual readers of popular literature and as a result the cultural roles of such texts are not well understood. "A good literary critic should be able to say why a mass-seller works, and how it works. The dismissive certainties of most comments on popular culture do not satisfy these requirements." (Knight, p.2) Popular culture audiences have received quite condescending treatment as many studies have assumed them to be a passive and receptive body upon which ideological content is inflicted. In 1981, Janice Radway, writing about Gothic romances, expressed concern at the lack of theories connecting popular literature and culture: " ... studies characterized by considerable variety in subject matter and method are united by their common assumption that popular literature tends only to reconfirm cultural convention". (p.140) Radway's insistence on shifting attention from isolated texts 'to the complex social event of reading' culminated in her development of an innovative methodology for analysing popular literature and its application to romantic fiction (1984). Having concluded that 'ethnographies of reading' were what was required, Radway set out to discover what it is about romantic fiction that captivates millions of female readers. In Reading the Romance (1984), Radway describes how, instead of focusing on the romantic text alone, she concentrated on the readers' perspective. In distinguishing between the event of reading and the actual text, Radway draws heavily on the work of Stanley Fish (1980) who challenges the notion of text as a fixed object. Although Fish's views imply an impotency of the actual text that deserves to be questioned, his identification of the informed reader as part of an interpretive community that agrees upon interpretive conventions is extremely important. Richard Johnson (1986) advocates the connection of readings with 'lived culture' and the necessity to study the readers' milieu (p.285). While acknowledging the importance of textual analysis, Johnson questions its competence to handle an 'inter-discursive reality of reading'. Longhurst describes this emergence of involvement of the reader as an emphasis on reading 'textuality' rather than the reading of self-contained texts (p.5). It is Radway's model for popular literature analysis that lays the groundwork for this present study, which focuses on the nature of the relationship between science fiction readers and the science fiction text. The objective of this research is to gain a greater understanding of what motivates people to read a particular type of text and to strive toward an explanation for the genre's popularity. Some of the questions to be explored are: what do the readers find particularly interesting and enjoyable about these texts?; what are their criteria for distinguishing between 'good' and 'bad' texts?; and to what extent does the collective enthusiasm exhibited by some readers of science fiction affect the content of science fiction texts? For Radway's Smithton readers, the event of reading was considered more important than any particular novel encountered in the process. Similarly, this study will reveal that reading texts as a member of the science fiction community is more important to the readers than are the individual texts themselves. 'Fandom' is central to science fiction. In a genre long neglected by outside commentators, science fiction fandom has established its own standards of quality (Lundwall, 1971, p.227). Commenting on the social universe of fandom, author Roger Zelazny (1975) writes: ... science fiction is unique in possessing a fandom and convention system which make for personal contacts between authors and readers, a situation which may be of peculiar significance. When an author is in a position to meet and speak with large numbers of his readers he cannot help, at least for a little while, feeling somewhat as oldtime story-tellers must have felt in facing the questions and the comments of a live audience. The psychologbe given some consideration as an influence on the field. (p.11) This subculture of fandom peculiar to science fiction attracts hordes of devotees world-wide. They set up clubs, edit magazines, share a shorthand language of fandom, attend science fiction conventions and take their place in a vast network of correspondence. Ursula Le Guin identifies "a ready audience - ready to discuss and to defend and to attack and to argue with each other and with the artist, to the irritation of and the entertainment and the benefit of them all" (1975). Bob Tucker describes the science fiction phenomenon as "a network of infinite self-analysis and mutual support which is quite unparalleled even in Alcoholics Anonymous" (1975). Such descriptions highlight the existence of an active, socially important subculture. The very nature and extent of communication within the science fiction community, particularly the relatively enormous amount of feedback science fiction writers receive from readers, makes it appear simplistic to explain the proliferation of the different variations of the science fiction literary form as a preoccupation of writers alone. "In the democratic, if incestuous, processes of this subculture, SF readers are more vocal than those of other popular forms, and as a consequence, exercise some influence over writers and publishers." (Mellor, 1984) According to Linda Fleming (1978), in an article titled "The American SF Subculture", A SF subculture originated, developed, and exists today because of the enthusiasm SF arouses in some people, the subsequent commercial exploitation of that enthusiasm, and because both professionals and readers have found belonging to a group a socially rewarding experience for brief or long periods of their lives. (p.290) Fleming prompts the investigation of this network which mediates the reading experience for so many readers and has done so for many years. Sheical process involved in this should poses questions about fandom and the nature of people's involvement in science fiction that have yet to be answered adequately by research. This study will illuminate several of these, accepting Fleming's assertion that modern science fiction cannot be fully understood without understanding the subculture in which so much of it evolved. In order to account for the existence of modern science fiction and its many themes, a review of the field of science fiction will include a brief history of the genre and its followers. The Australian science fiction scene will be examined so that the primary research can be considered in context. Central to this study are the members of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club who, as survey respondents, have expressed what it is to be part of Australian science fiction fandom as no external critic can. The Melbourne Science Fiction Club was chosen to take part in the survey for several reasons: Melbourne is recognised as the centre of Australian science fiction fandom; the Club has a history longer than most others in Australia (it was formed in 1953); the Club meets every week and produces a bimonthly publication; it is a 'general' club, that is, not concerned solely with one particular strand of science fiction, like Star Trek movies; and, most importantly, the members were willing participants. Obviously, members of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club do not constitute a random representative sample of readers of the science fiction genre. They did, however, present an excellent opportunity to test questionnaire design and sample a slice of science fiction's active readership. The survey of readers is supplemented with content analysis of their Club 'fanzine', Ethel the Aardvark, and science fiction texts are discussed as the products of interpretation. Of the great variety of science fiction narrative types, disaster novels are identified as possessing a formula that has proved particularly durable. Discussion of several disaster texts that illustrate the modern evolution of this formula reveals many of science fiction's icons and oppositions that promote regularities in textual readings. While the questionnaire follows a similar format to that designed by Radway, it has proved more appropriate to tap science fiction fandom's correspondence and fanzine network than to hold in-depth discussions with Club members as Radway was able to arrange with the Smithton readers. Science fiction fandom's preference and, indeed, exuberance, for written communication has compensated for some of the problems inherent in being distanced from survey respondents. The reason for choosing to follow Radway's method, aside from its wide acclaim as a useful model for future literary research, is an interest in applying her approach to another genre of popular literature. Radway offers a way of connecting the analysis of texts and structural insights with study of the readers in the texts' wider socio-cultural context. The nature of repetitive reading of various types of science fiction texts becomes particularly interesting when it is considered that fans may be equally, if not more, submerged in science fiction fandom than they are in science fiction.

For centuries utopian and science fiction has allowed women to engage with dominant discourses, especially those which have been defined as the “domain” of men. Feminist scholars have often characterized this genealogy as one which begins with the destabilization of Enlightenment ideals of the rational subject in the Romantic Revolution, with the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) in particular. This thesis demonstrates that there has in fact been an enduring history of women’s cognitive and rational attempts to explore key discourses such as science, technology and architecture through Reason, as opposed to rage. This is a genealogy of women writing utopian science fiction that is best illuminated through Darko Suvin’s of the novum. Chapter One reveals how the innovative utopian visions of Margaret Cavendish (1626-1673) proffer a highly rational and feminist critique of seventeenth-century experimental science. Chapter Two demonstrates how Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall (1762) explored the socio-political significance of the monstrous-looking “human” body some fifty years before Shelley’s Frankenstein. Following this, Chapter Three re-reads Frankenstein in light of the early nineteenth century zeitgeist of laissez-faire economics, technological advancement and global imperialism and argues that these were also the concerns of other utopian science fiction works by women, such as Jane Loudon’s The Mummy! (1827). Chapter Four analyses how the function of the novum is integral to L.T. Meade’s (1854-1915) depictions of male/female interaction in the scientific field. Chapter Five considers how important it is to acknowledge the materialist concern with popular science that informs texts such as Joanna Russ’s The Female Man (1975) and Pat Cadigan’s cyberpunk novel Synners (1991). This is the history of how women have used the form of utopian science fiction as a means with which to present a rational female voice. In addition to the historical works by women, it employs a range of utopian and science fiction theory from Suvin and Fredric Jameson to historical and contemporary feminism.

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.

My Bachelor’s thesis is a comparative analysis between humans and machines in a science fiction novel (Neuromancer) and a movie (Matrix). I explored in these works how the machines used technologies to influence on the humans. I used examples of characters from the text and movie along with the references of other writers writing on the same topic to help convey my message. I explored mainly the identity and reality issues among characters. William Gibson in Neuromancer portrays that technology has become a part of human body. While in the Matrix we see how machines are taking control on humans. In my thesis I started with Neuromancer and write about identity and reality issues of characters and artificial intelligences. In the second part of the thesis I write the same with the characters of the movie Matrix but also I compared these characters with characters of Neuromancer. Some other discussions in my thesis are about hyperreality, simulation, simulacra with reference to mostly Baudrillard. Overall this thesis explores the issues of identity and reality to the characters in the works and also to the readers as well. Key Terms: Identity, Reality, Hyperreality, Simulation, Simulacra.