Children of Time (2015) and Children of Ruin (2019) are a pair of novels which tackle themes of i... more Children of Time (2015) and Children of Ruin (2019) are a pair of novels which tackle themes of interplanetary exploration and bioengineered evolution. Each novel follows a small group of human beings from Earth on a mission to find potentially habitable planets to terraform, including a plan for bioengineering to allow for accelerated evolution. In the first novel, the inheritors of this bioengineering are not the primates that had been planned, but arachnids, and in the second octopodes. Later narrative threads follow humankind many thousands of generations later, to be confronted by ‘descendants’ that are human in intellect and society, while startlingly alien in their physical form. In depicting a proposed course of evolution in which the inheritors of humanity defy categorisation as ‘human’, the ontology of evolutionary narratives is at once challenged and reinforced. I follow Misia Landau in proposing that accounts of human evolution are intensely narratological, and that on this basis science-fictional depictions of ‘future’ evolution do not so much imagine outcomes for human development, but rather reveal (and sometimes challenge) the narratological framework with which our understanding of the evolutionary process takes place. Moreover, this has implications for ongoing discourse surrounding astrobiology and exoplanetary research. Science-fictional imaginings for the future of human expansion pose challenges to notions of human inheritance, and interrogate the narrative constructs through which we understand our own evolutionary history
So many of our endeavours in literature and science scholarship involve negotiating meaning as un... more So many of our endeavours in literature and science scholarship involve negotiating meaning as understood by the natural sciences, and how that meaning is translated into fiction or poetry. The natural sciences demand a specific metaphysics of language, one of precision and close subject-object relations. Science-fiction literature, I will suggest, is something of a trouble-maker in these negotiations, in that it both borrows from and subverts a scientific metaphysics of language. This paper is not intended as a poetics of science fiction so much as an examination of how language functions within science fiction. The texts under consideration are part of a community of works in which language and reality are inextricably intertwined. These are texts that play with what Toulmin calls the ‘agreed meanings’ of scientific discourse. For instance, in China Mieville’s Embassytown language is renegotiated in such a way as to change the ontological status of ‘not’ statements. (The novel depicts a community that can neither articulate nor conceptualise untruths.) Such renegotiations are central to the ‘science’ of science fiction. These works affiliate themselves with a discourse in which negation equates to falsifiability, yet treat negative statements as something narratological. The purpose of this paper will be to examine the ways in which established language games are dismantled and reconstructed in science fiction. Texts under consideration are the above mentioned Embassytown, Ted Chiang’s Story of your Life, and Samuel R. Delaney’s Babel 17.
Myth and the Doctor Panel NEPCA Conference, Keene State College, Keene, NH 21-22 October 2016 Cha... more Myth and the Doctor Panel NEPCA Conference, Keene State College, Keene, NH 21-22 October 2016 Chair: Dr. Raymond J. DiSanza Saturday, 23 November 1963, Doctor Who stepped out of his TARDIS and onto the small screen for the first time. In the fifty plus years since, thirteen different actors have portrayed the Doctor on his adventures through space and time; countless worlds have been visited, races of aliens encountered, and monsters overcome; companions have come and gone (and then come back and gone again); and the Doctor’s story has proven too large to be contained by any one narrative medium, venturing forth from television into radio, comics, and novels, as well as a variety of spin-offs. Doctor Who’s incredible success is, in large part, due to the show’s creation of a mythological framework that is at once novel and recognizable. This panel of international scholars will explore the nature of Doctor Who mythology, its relevance in contemporary society, its ties to the past, and the opportunities afforded by operating within such a highly developed mythological framework. This selection of papers looks at some of the Doctor’s most iconic villains and how they reflect contemporary technological development, the Doctor’s status as outsider/other and the narratives he and others construct around that status, and the cultural, racial, ethnic identities of those the Doctor’s Companions and how they do—or don’t—reflect the changing world around us. The papers span and often bring together stories from different media and different eras in the Doctor’s history, and explore diverse topics related to the mythos of Doctor Who, including selfhood, identity, myth-making, narratology, technology, race, diversity and…all of time and space.
This paper will discuss the ways in which literary scholarship can engage with the hard sciences ... more This paper will discuss the ways in which literary scholarship can engage with the hard sciences while maintaining its integrity as a discipline. How far can (or should) literary studies accommodate differing interpretations of terms such as “fiction” or “metaphysics”? Can we learn to read literature such as science fiction differently by allowing our readings to be informed by the hard sciences and philosophy of science? Attention will be paid to the implications of any such changes for scholarly readings of science in literature, drawing on recent collaborative work with evolutionary geneticists and cognitive scientists on the fiction of Mary Doria Russell and Ted Chiang as working examples. The purpose of this paper is not to provide a manifesto for interdisciplinary research, but rather to invite discussion on the role of such ventures for the identity and activity of literary studies.
The aim of the paper and discussion is to explore the ways in which the use of fictionality in th... more The aim of the paper and discussion is to explore the ways in which the use of fictionality in these disciplines can in return inform the act of generating fictional readings in literary theory. We will discuss the ways in which these disciplines understand and problematise terms such as ‘real’, ‘possible’ and ‘truthful’, and explore how apparent conflicts and differences in approach can be turned into an inter-disciplinary conversation. The paper will discuss the relationship between literary theories of fictionality (Ryan, Thomasson, Eco etc.) and how these are translated for use in other disciplines such as philosophy of science and physics. For instance philosophy of science has recognised the important role of fictions in the modelling practice of diverse fields such as economics, biology, chemistry, and physics (Suarez, Godfrey-Smith, Weisberg). In describing their models, scientists often start with: “Imagine that …” This process of idealisation then gains concreteness when assumptions and empirical data become integrated into a model. One of the questions discussed in philosophy of science concerns the relation of models to the target systems. The element of fiction in this relationship puts a question mark behind the terms ‘real’, ‘possible’ and ‘truth’. The models give possible explanations about the phenomena under investigation. The paper and subsequent discussion is proposed with the intention of establishing the framework for a possible conference/workshop on the position of fiction and fictionality in the sciences and literature.
Several of E.M. Forster's novels take as their subj ect 'The British Abroad&#... more Several of E.M. Forster's novels take as their subj ect 'The British Abroad', presenting characters who struggle to experience a culture out side the confines of British social norms. A Passage to India , however, takes this concept yet further, as Forst er describes not only members of the British Raj in In dia, but members of Indian society under
Children of Time (2015) and Children of Ruin (2019) are a pair of novels which tackle themes of i... more Children of Time (2015) and Children of Ruin (2019) are a pair of novels which tackle themes of interplanetary exploration and bioengineered evolution. Each novel follows a small group of human beings from Earth on a mission to find potentially habitable planets to terraform, including a plan for bioengineering to allow for accelerated evolution. In the first novel, the inheritors of this bioengineering are not the primates that had been planned, but arachnids, and in the second octopodes. Later narrative threads follow humankind many thousands of generations later, to be confronted by ‘descendants’ that are human in intellect and society, while startlingly alien in their physical form. In depicting a proposed course of evolution in which the inheritors of humanity defy categorisation as ‘human’, the ontology of evolutionary narratives is at once challenged and reinforced. I follow Misia Landau in proposing that accounts of human evolution are intensely narratological, and that on this basis science-fictional depictions of ‘future’ evolution do not so much imagine outcomes for human development, but rather reveal (and sometimes challenge) the narratological framework with which our understanding of the evolutionary process takes place. Moreover, this has implications for ongoing discourse surrounding astrobiology and exoplanetary research. Science-fictional imaginings for the future of human expansion pose challenges to notions of human inheritance, and interrogate the narrative constructs through which we understand our own evolutionary history
So many of our endeavours in literature and science scholarship involve negotiating meaning as un... more So many of our endeavours in literature and science scholarship involve negotiating meaning as understood by the natural sciences, and how that meaning is translated into fiction or poetry. The natural sciences demand a specific metaphysics of language, one of precision and close subject-object relations. Science-fiction literature, I will suggest, is something of a trouble-maker in these negotiations, in that it both borrows from and subverts a scientific metaphysics of language. This paper is not intended as a poetics of science fiction so much as an examination of how language functions within science fiction. The texts under consideration are part of a community of works in which language and reality are inextricably intertwined. These are texts that play with what Toulmin calls the ‘agreed meanings’ of scientific discourse. For instance, in China Mieville’s Embassytown language is renegotiated in such a way as to change the ontological status of ‘not’ statements. (The novel depicts a community that can neither articulate nor conceptualise untruths.) Such renegotiations are central to the ‘science’ of science fiction. These works affiliate themselves with a discourse in which negation equates to falsifiability, yet treat negative statements as something narratological. The purpose of this paper will be to examine the ways in which established language games are dismantled and reconstructed in science fiction. Texts under consideration are the above mentioned Embassytown, Ted Chiang’s Story of your Life, and Samuel R. Delaney’s Babel 17.
Myth and the Doctor Panel NEPCA Conference, Keene State College, Keene, NH 21-22 October 2016 Cha... more Myth and the Doctor Panel NEPCA Conference, Keene State College, Keene, NH 21-22 October 2016 Chair: Dr. Raymond J. DiSanza Saturday, 23 November 1963, Doctor Who stepped out of his TARDIS and onto the small screen for the first time. In the fifty plus years since, thirteen different actors have portrayed the Doctor on his adventures through space and time; countless worlds have been visited, races of aliens encountered, and monsters overcome; companions have come and gone (and then come back and gone again); and the Doctor’s story has proven too large to be contained by any one narrative medium, venturing forth from television into radio, comics, and novels, as well as a variety of spin-offs. Doctor Who’s incredible success is, in large part, due to the show’s creation of a mythological framework that is at once novel and recognizable. This panel of international scholars will explore the nature of Doctor Who mythology, its relevance in contemporary society, its ties to the past, and the opportunities afforded by operating within such a highly developed mythological framework. This selection of papers looks at some of the Doctor’s most iconic villains and how they reflect contemporary technological development, the Doctor’s status as outsider/other and the narratives he and others construct around that status, and the cultural, racial, ethnic identities of those the Doctor’s Companions and how they do—or don’t—reflect the changing world around us. The papers span and often bring together stories from different media and different eras in the Doctor’s history, and explore diverse topics related to the mythos of Doctor Who, including selfhood, identity, myth-making, narratology, technology, race, diversity and…all of time and space.
This paper will discuss the ways in which literary scholarship can engage with the hard sciences ... more This paper will discuss the ways in which literary scholarship can engage with the hard sciences while maintaining its integrity as a discipline. How far can (or should) literary studies accommodate differing interpretations of terms such as “fiction” or “metaphysics”? Can we learn to read literature such as science fiction differently by allowing our readings to be informed by the hard sciences and philosophy of science? Attention will be paid to the implications of any such changes for scholarly readings of science in literature, drawing on recent collaborative work with evolutionary geneticists and cognitive scientists on the fiction of Mary Doria Russell and Ted Chiang as working examples. The purpose of this paper is not to provide a manifesto for interdisciplinary research, but rather to invite discussion on the role of such ventures for the identity and activity of literary studies.
The aim of the paper and discussion is to explore the ways in which the use of fictionality in th... more The aim of the paper and discussion is to explore the ways in which the use of fictionality in these disciplines can in return inform the act of generating fictional readings in literary theory. We will discuss the ways in which these disciplines understand and problematise terms such as ‘real’, ‘possible’ and ‘truthful’, and explore how apparent conflicts and differences in approach can be turned into an inter-disciplinary conversation. The paper will discuss the relationship between literary theories of fictionality (Ryan, Thomasson, Eco etc.) and how these are translated for use in other disciplines such as philosophy of science and physics. For instance philosophy of science has recognised the important role of fictions in the modelling practice of diverse fields such as economics, biology, chemistry, and physics (Suarez, Godfrey-Smith, Weisberg). In describing their models, scientists often start with: “Imagine that …” This process of idealisation then gains concreteness when assumptions and empirical data become integrated into a model. One of the questions discussed in philosophy of science concerns the relation of models to the target systems. The element of fiction in this relationship puts a question mark behind the terms ‘real’, ‘possible’ and ‘truth’. The models give possible explanations about the phenomena under investigation. The paper and subsequent discussion is proposed with the intention of establishing the framework for a possible conference/workshop on the position of fiction and fictionality in the sciences and literature.
Several of E.M. Forster's novels take as their subj ect 'The British Abroad&#... more Several of E.M. Forster's novels take as their subj ect 'The British Abroad', presenting characters who struggle to experience a culture out side the confines of British social norms. A Passage to India , however, takes this concept yet further, as Forst er describes not only members of the British Raj in In dia, but members of Indian society under
Children of Time (2015) and Children of Ruin (2019) are a pair of novels which tackle themes of i... more Children of Time (2015) and Children of Ruin (2019) are a pair of novels which tackle themes of interplanetary exploration and bioengineered evolution. Each novel follows a small group of human beings from Earth on a mission to find potentially habitable planets to terraform, including a plan for bioengineering to allow for accelerated evolution. In the first novel, the inheritors of this bioengineering are not the primates that had been planned, but arachnids, and in the second octopodes. Later narrative threads follow humankind many thousands of generations later, to be confronted by ‘descendants’ that are human in intellect and society, while startlingly alien in their physical form.
In depicting a proposed course of evolution in which the inheritors of humanity defy categorisation as ‘human’, the ontology of evolutionary narratives is at once challenged and reinforced. I follow Misia Landau in proposing that accounts of human evolution are intensely narratological, and that on this basis science-fictional depictions of ‘future’ evolution do not so much imagine outcomes for human development, but rather reveal (and sometimes challenge) the narratological framework with which our understanding of the evolutionary process takes place. Moreover, this has implications for ongoing discourse surrounding astrobiology and exoplanetary research. Science-fictional imaginings for the future of human expansion pose challenges to notions of human inheritance, and interrogate the narrative constructs through which we understand our own evolutionary history.
So many of our endeavours in literature and science scholarship involve negotiating meaning as un... more So many of our endeavours in literature and science scholarship involve negotiating meaning as understood by the natural sciences, and how that meaning is translated into fiction or poetry. The natural sciences demand a specific metaphysics of language, one of precision and close subject-object relations. Science-fiction literature, I will suggest, is something of a trouble-maker in these negotiations, in that it both borrows from and subverts a scientific metaphysics of language.
This paper is not intended as a poetics of science fiction so much as an examination of how language functions within science fiction. The texts under consideration are part of a community of works in which language and reality are inextricably intertwined. These are texts that play with what Toulmin calls the ‘agreed meanings’ of scientific discourse. For instance, in China Mieville’s Embassytown language is renegotiated in such a way as to change the ontological status of ‘not’ statements. (The novel depicts a community that can neither articulate nor conceptualise untruths.) Such renegotiations are central to the ‘science’ of science fiction. These works affiliate themselves with a discourse in which negation equates to falsifiability, yet treat negative statements as something narratological.
The purpose of this paper will be to examine the ways in which established language games are dismantled and reconstructed in science fiction. Texts under consideration are the above mentioned Embassytown, Ted Chiang’s Story of your Life, and Samuel R. Delaney’s Babel 17.
SAUTE Conference 2017: The challenge of change in English language and literature, 2017
This paper will discuss the ways in which literary scholarship can engage with the hard
sciences ... more This paper will discuss the ways in which literary scholarship can engage with the hard sciences while maintaining its integrity as a discipline. How far can (or should) literary studies accommodate differing interpretations of terms such as “fiction” or “metaphysics”? Can we learn to read literature such as science fiction differently by allowing our readings to be informed by the hard sciences and philosophy of science? Attention will be paid to the implications of any such changes for scholarly readings of science in literature, drawing on recent collaborative work with evolutionary geneticists and cognitive scientists on the fiction of Mary Doria Russell and Ted Chiang as working examples. The purpose of this paper is not to provide a manifesto for interdisciplinary research, but rather to invite discussion on the role of such ventures for the identity and activity of literary studies.
We wish to present a collaborative project on science fiction studies, which has two distinct
but... more We wish to present a collaborative project on science fiction studies, which has two distinct but related foci: science fiction, fictionality and cognition (Bollinger, PhD project), and science fiction as narrative hermeneutics of astrophysics and astrobiology (Lehmann, postdoc project). The role of empathy in narrative construction is a central but challenging theme in our project. As our contribution to the workshop “Narrative Empathy”, we would like to introduce those of our primary texts for which empathy acts as a challenge both within the narrative and to the reader. In science fiction, empathy reveals its potential to be transgressive or even dangerous, as well as conciliatory. As brief examples of our work in progress, we will introduce Ann Leckie’s novel Ancillary Justice, in which the protagonist’s extra-cognitive empathic abilities give her strategic and political power. Her first-person narrative also challenges the empathies of the reader, as she experiences empathy both for oppressed peoples within her social structure, and individuals who are members of the oppressive regime – all while utilising her empathic powers towards a militaristic revenge strategy. This challenge of ‘translatability’ between empathy at the social or individual level will be further outlined in novels of space exploration such as Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow. Here, as human beings make first contact with a socially sophisticated alien planet, empathy is shown to be inadequate and even dangerous if not accompanied by social and linguistic understanding. Research for our project is heavily embedded in exchange with those scientific disciplines with which it is concerned, and we also bring with us to the workshop a growing awareness of the role (and challenges) of empathy in the metanarrative of interdisciplinary communication. We are especially interested in the need for empathy in confronting disciplinary narratives and traditions which are different to our own experiences.
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Papers by Zoe Lehmann Imfeld
In depicting a proposed course of evolution in which the inheritors of humanity defy categorisation as ‘human’, the ontology of evolutionary narratives is at once challenged and reinforced. I follow Misia Landau in proposing that accounts of human evolution are intensely narratological, and that on this basis science-fictional depictions of ‘future’ evolution do not so much imagine outcomes for human development, but rather reveal (and sometimes challenge) the narratological framework with which our understanding of the evolutionary process takes place. Moreover, this has implications for ongoing discourse surrounding astrobiology and exoplanetary research. Science-fictional imaginings for the future of human expansion pose challenges to notions of human inheritance, and interrogate the narrative constructs through which we understand our own evolutionary history.
This paper is not intended as a poetics of science fiction so much as an examination of how language functions within science fiction. The texts under consideration are part of a community of works in which language and reality are inextricably intertwined. These are texts that play with what Toulmin calls the ‘agreed meanings’ of scientific discourse. For instance, in China Mieville’s Embassytown language is renegotiated in such a way as to change the ontological status of ‘not’ statements. (The novel depicts a community that can neither articulate nor conceptualise untruths.) Such renegotiations are central to the ‘science’ of science fiction. These works affiliate themselves with a discourse in which negation equates to falsifiability, yet treat negative statements as something narratological.
The purpose of this paper will be to examine the ways in which established language games are dismantled and reconstructed in science fiction. Texts under consideration are the above mentioned Embassytown, Ted Chiang’s Story of your Life, and Samuel R. Delaney’s Babel 17.
sciences while maintaining its integrity as a discipline. How far can (or should) literary
studies accommodate differing interpretations of terms such as “fiction” or “metaphysics”?
Can we learn to read literature such as science fiction differently by allowing our readings to
be informed by the hard sciences and philosophy of science?
Attention will be paid to the implications of any such changes for scholarly readings of
science in literature, drawing on recent collaborative work with evolutionary geneticists and
cognitive scientists on the fiction of Mary Doria Russell and Ted Chiang as working
examples. The purpose of this paper is not to provide a manifesto for interdisciplinary
research, but rather to invite discussion on the role of such ventures for the identity and
activity of literary studies.
but related foci: science fiction, fictionality and cognition (Bollinger, PhD project), and
science fiction as narrative hermeneutics of astrophysics and astrobiology (Lehmann, postdoc
project). The role of empathy in narrative construction is a central but challenging
theme in our project. As our contribution to the workshop “Narrative Empathy”, we would
like to introduce those of our primary texts for which empathy acts as a challenge both
within the narrative and to the reader. In science fiction, empathy reveals its potential to be
transgressive or even dangerous, as well as conciliatory. As brief examples of our work in
progress, we will introduce Ann Leckie’s novel Ancillary Justice, in which the protagonist’s
extra-cognitive empathic abilities give her strategic and political power. Her first-person
narrative also challenges the empathies of the reader, as she experiences empathy both for
oppressed peoples within her social structure, and individuals who are members of the
oppressive regime – all while utilising her empathic powers towards a militaristic revenge
strategy.
This challenge of ‘translatability’ between empathy at the social or individual level will be
further outlined in novels of space exploration such as Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow.
Here, as human beings make first contact with a socially sophisticated alien planet, empathy
is shown to be inadequate and even dangerous if not accompanied by social and linguistic
understanding.
Research for our project is heavily embedded in exchange with those scientific disciplines
with which it is concerned, and we also bring with us to the workshop a growing awareness
of the role (and challenges) of empathy in the metanarrative of interdisciplinary
communication. We are especially interested in the need for empathy in confronting
disciplinary narratives and traditions which are different to our own experiences.