Science Fiction/Speculative Fiction

Abstract This paper reflects on the teaching of science fiction texts to first-year engineering students at the University of the Witwatersrand as part of a Critical Thinking course that uses literature as a vehicle through which to develop competence in critical literacy and communication. This course aims to equip engineering students, as future intermediaries between science and society, with the ability to fulfil this role in both the contemporary global world and South Africa more specifically through the imaginative inhabitation of divergent subject positions afforded by literary texts. Science fiction encourages students to engage imaginatively with various societal ideas, constructs and possibilities. One of the principles of the course is that reading facilitates empathic responses, challenging readers to inhabit unfamiliar subject positions. In this way, the teaching of science fiction aims to develop self-reflective and critical learning practices, wherein engineering students grapple with the ethical ramifications of extrapolated known science in a South African context.

The reactivation or the ‘rebooting’ of the Star Wars franchise, following its purchase by the Walt Disney Corporation, has opened a new space for critical engagement with the franchise. Star Wars is an epic space opera franchise oriented around the film series created by George Lucas. The contextual backdrop of the films is macro-political: a political republic (the Galactic Republic) is corrupted and subverted by a powerful maniacal tyrant (Sheev Palpatine), and through a ‘state of emergency’ he transforms the Republic into an authoritarian Galactic Empire. While the backdrop of the film series is macro-political, it can be argued that the films do not focus on representing a crucial socio-political category: socio-economic class. This dissertation investigates the representation of socio-economic class within Star Wars media, focusing on three key Star Wars video games and the commercial film series, through the application of concepts drawn from the political philosophy of G.W.F Hegel, science fiction criticism, architectural discourse, and human geography. The critical discourse around Star Wars has not approached socio-economic representation in a substantial way. This dissertation engages with the representation of class in Star Wars through a transmedial and transtextual analysis, as it is argued that a typology of economic classifications can be constructed by considering texts beyond the cinematic series. This typological construction aims to effectively interpret the politics of Star Wars beyond the macro-political backdrop, as to incorporate the material conditions of the people left behind by the Star Wars metanarrative.

SCIENCE-FICTION AS A TEACHING TOOL
"Science-fiction is concerned with not yet topical or not yet discovered problems, to which it offers rational solutions. Or, conversely, we can also say that science fiction is concerned with topical and already discovered problems and it offers non-existent yet rational solutions to them", Margit S. Sárdi claims following Stanislaw Lem's views. (S. Sárdi, 2013, 32.) The exciting questions related to genre theory mostly reflect on the operation of the society of a given era, which, in turn, is mostly related to technological changes. My presentation aims to answer the following questions: Is there a place for the genre of science fiction/speculative fiction in the classroom? Is it worth teaching this relatively recent, highly flexible, hitherto not really appreciated genre? If yes, what are we supposed to explore and bequeath to further generations? How could this type of texts be used to make us face the most important issues of our time? In my opinion, these latter are: To what extent is the operation of the institutions of the society determined by the economy or industrial conditions? To what extent can inequalities in the society further increased? What are the reasons of the climate catastrophe? How are questions related to immigration-emigration, terrorism, colonization and gender issues approached by science fiction authors?

It’s impossible to discuss the recent Blade Runner 2049 without touching on its dystopian
aesthetics. The film is a contradiction of fascinating aesthetics within a world of decay,
the gloomy vision of cyberpunk. Yet, one must not limit the discussion of dystopian
cinema to its visual images or its narrative aspects. What is most important is the
way in which dystopian cinema relates to ideas. This article critically engages with
Blade Runner 2049 from a theoretical point of view, focusing on its key themes,
which have diagnostic value for social and cultural analysis. I argue that the film
presents a critique of the current world, a nascent rebellion, which opposes corporate
capitalism, but it’s unable to conceive of a future that moves beyond it.

Chapter 2: Review of Related Literature and Studies

This chapter summarizes the exploratory research of a multidisciplinary body of literature on the theories, principles, and standards related to the systematic design of a logical taxonomy of contemporary short sfict; to the empirical evaluation of sfict texts, genres, and instruments related to their categorization; and relevant elements of heuristics applicable to hypotheses formulation.

In 1995 writer and literary critic Chi Ta-wei published The Membranes (膜), a groundbreaking work of queer speculative fiction. Twenty-five years after its initial publication in Chinese, Ari Larissa Heinrich has produced a new English-language translation of this landmark novel. This online event will bring together the writer and translator to reflect upon The Membranes and its place in the history of queer literature in Taiwan. Divided into three parts, this event will feature short lectures by Professors Chi and Heinrich, followed by a dialogue with Michael Berry and members of the audience.

Este artículo se ocupa de establecer una hipótesis de lectura en torno del concepto de "utopía andina" y más bien pretende establecer la "ucronía andina" como forma de leer este tipo de producciones textual. Para ello, analiza las novelas de folletín de 1843 "LIma de aquí a cien años", de Julián M. del Portillo, y "Cusco de aquí a cien año", anónima, y que se formuló como respuesta paródica a "Lima...". De hecho, el texto de Portillo es una muestra de aproximación especulativa sobre el Perú 100 años en el futuro del inicio del relato (1943) y sería el primer antecedente no sólo de un eventual desarrollo del género, sino de la novela peruana en general.

Using the speculative fiction of Ray Bradbury's space stories and the speculative theology/philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling," this paper presents a particular example of the analogous relationship between science-fiction and theology.

It  is  my  claim  that  Gilles  Deleuze’s  expressionism  allows  for a new  theory  and  praxis  of  reading called  Immanent  Reading,  different  from  both  his  own  Schizoanalytic  praxis  and  the referential and  ontological  theories  informing  Literary  Theory.  Immanent  reading,  I  propose,  following Colebrook’s  readings  of  Deleuze,  offers  an  ethics  of  reading  emphasising  the  pure  immediacy  of relations,  including  those  expressed  by  life.  It  is  upon  this  primary  vector  that this  thesis progresses:  the  broad  articulation  and  creation  of  a theory  of Immanent  Reading.  To  achieve this,  I  claim  that  the  expressionist  metaphysics  exposed  by  Deleuze  in  Spinoza  and  Leibniz is altered  by  Deleuze  in  his  own  conceptual  creations  (as  with  becoming  and  immanence)  and persists  as  a properly  Deleuzian  expressionism.  The  degrees  of  expression  I  propose  belong  to immanent  reading  are,  without  necessary  order,  the written-body,  the  reader-body,  and  a milieu of  becoming that  composes  them  together and  transforms  their  affective  and  perceptive compositions.  The written-body  distinguishes  itself  as  a creation  of percepts  and  affects  in writing,  the  reader-body  through  its  involvement  of  pliable  perceptions  and  affections,  and becoming through  its  transformative capacity  on  these affective and  perceptive  complexes.  The concept  of  immanence  subtends  this  expressive  composition,  drawing reading into  pure immediacy  while  articulating  it  as  a process  of unnatural encounters  for  “a  Life”.  To  avoid representations  of  life in  demonstrating  the praxis,  this  thesis  engages  with  speculative literature.  Deleuze  has  made  use  of  speculative  writers,  such  as  Lovecraft  and  Asimov,  to  create his  (with  and  without  Guattari and  Parnet)  concept  of  becoming.  Here  I  engage  with  Le  Guin, McCarthy,  and  Stanley  Robinson  amongst  others.  The  consequence  of  composing  an  encounter with  speculative  literature  for immanent  reading  is  multi-fold,  with  this  thesis  theorising  an expressionist  logic  in  the  creation  of  speculative  sensations  and  the  becomings  they  herald.



Available on request

Faced with the threat of a “post-truth” world and a widening chasm of exchange between climate change deniers and environmentalists, I argue that future-orientated literary and media speculative fictions—which I term “speculative futures”—offer a means of building lines of communication across social and political divisions. This thought piece on “The Environmental Humanities in a Post-Truth World” mediates upon the potentiality of speculative futures as theory, social bridge-building, and pedagogical tool. Speculative fictions (especially those that address environmental justice, and anti-colonial and feminist politics) use storytelling and future imaginaries to challenge political falsehoods and imagine more ecological, de-colonized futures.

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Split & island of Vis, 3-6 December 2018

This conference seeks to explore water narratives (ecological, fictional, political) in the context of the changes that our rivers, seas, oceans, as well as other fluidities, are currently undergoing. How might the stories that we tell of water and its life-giving and transformative force guide us through the sea change of the Anthropocene?

Keynote addresses: Adeline Johns-Putra (University of Surrey), Rebecca Giggs (Macquarie University) & Joško Božanić (University of Split)

The conference will be held jointly in Split and on the island of Vis, to correspond with festivities surrounding St. Nicholas day, patron saint of sailors.

Ich beziehe mich erst einmal auf die Vorschläge und Anmerkungen von Ebert, der aus der Sicht der Stadtplaner vier mögliche Funktionen von literarischer Genres herausstellt. Dazu muss ich gleich sagen, dass ich aus der Perspektive von Stadtwissenschaftlern und generell einer wissenschaftlichen Bearbeitung urbaner Gesellschaften argumentiere, nicht so sehr aus der Perspektive von praktizierenden Stadtplanern. Außerdem werde ich mich auf ein bestimmtes literarisches Genre, nämlich Stadtfilme, genauer gesagt populäre Spielfilme, in denen Städte eine Hauptrolle spielen. Lassen Sie mich an das Wort von Ebert anknüpfen, dass der Versuch, von Literatur zu lernen, die Arbeit von Stadtplanern nicht einfacher macht, sondern dass Planer eine Reihe von Übersetzungen von der Stadtliteratur in die Erfindung konkreter Städte immer wieder selber leisten müssen. Die Frage stellt sich dann, wie man das lernen kann. Wie kann man lernen, was man aus der Stadtliteratur lernen oder auch nicht lernen kann? Sie sehen an dieser Frage, dass ich den vier Funktionen, die Ebert genannt hat, eine fünfte hinzufügen möchte: die Funktion von Stadtliteratur in der Planerausbildung. Ich würde gerne meine Überlegungen dazu an einem konkreten Film vorführen, nämlich Blade Runner. Vermutlich haben viele von Ihnen diesen Film gesehen. Scott Ridley's Blade Runner von 1981 eignet sich deshalb gut, weil vermutlich kein anderer Film so oft in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Literatur erwähnt worden ist. Lassen Sie mich an ein paar Beispielen zeigen, wie Blade Runner in der Urbanistik und darüber hinaus genutzt wird und wie verwweisungsreich diese Nutzung ist. Der Film geht zurück auf einen Roman des Kaliforniers Phillip Dick "Do Androids Dream Electric Dreams"-Träumen Androiden elektrische Träume. Dick hat diesen Roman in den 60er Jahren geschrieben. Der Roman dreht sich vor allem um zwei Visionen einer zukünftigen Gesellschaft: 1. Den totalen Verlust der natürlichen Natur: alle Lebewesen sind durch elektronische Kunstorganismen ersetzt, originäre Lebewesen sind ausgestorben bzw. tabuisiert. 2. Die Umkehrung nicht nur der Leistungsfähigkeit, sondern auch der moralischen Fähigkeiten im Mensch-Maschine-Verhältnis: die Androiden erweisen sich letzten Endes als die besseren Menschen... Der Roman selber hat soweit ich sehe bei