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A major, groundbreaking intervention into contemporary theoretical debates about SF. It effects a series of vital shifts in SF theory and criticism, away from prescriptively abstract dialectics of cognition and estrangement and towards the empirically grounded understanding of an amalgam of texts, practices and artefacts.
List of contents
Acknowledgements List of Figures 1. Memories of Dan Dare Memories of Science Fiction. Literature, Genre and Popular Fiction. Memories of Dan Dare. Tales of Resonance and Wonder. 2. Science Fiction and Selective Tradition Academic Definitions of Science Fiction. Modernism, Modernity and Science Fiction. Non-Academic Definitions of Science Fiction. Rethinking Genre. Rethinking Tradition. 3. Science Fiction and the Literary Field From the French Literary Field to the Global Science Fiction Field. Ideas and Effects. Science Fiction as Drama. Science Fiction as Prose. The Restricted Economy and Institutionalised Bourgeois Art. 4. Radio Science Fiction and the Theory of Genre Cultural Materialism as Method. Radio Technology and Science Fiction. Radio Science Fiction Forms: Three Texts. Radio Institutions. 5. Science Fiction, Utopia and Fantasy The North American Argument. The European Argument. Science Fiction and Fantasy. Utopianism in Popular Science Fiction. 6. Science Fiction and Dystopia The Antipathy to Dystopia. The Strange Case of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Science Fiction as a Generic Context. Three Intertexts. An Ideal Typology and Some Hypotheses. 7. When Was Science Fiction? Long Histories of Science Fiction. Science Fiction and the Structure of Feeling. Form and History. 8. Where Was Science Fiction? Postcolonial Theory and Science Fiction. World-Systems Theory and Science Fiction: The Anglo-French Core. The European Semiperiphery. From the Semiperiphery to Core: North America and Japan. 9. The Uses of Science Fiction Future Stories and Futurologies. Antipodean Utopias. On the Beach and The Sea and Summer. Anticipations of Phil Chase. Afterword. Works Cited Index
About the author
Andrew Milner is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Monash University. His previous books include
Literature, Culture and Society (2nd ed, Routledge, 2004) and
Re-imagining Cultural Studies (Sage, 2002).
Summary
A major, groundbreaking intervention into contemporary theoretical debates about SF. It effects a series of vital shifts in SF theory and criticism, away from prescriptively abstract dialectics of cognition and estrangement and towards the empirically grounded understanding of an amalgam of texts, practices and artefacts.
