Luckhurst, Roger (2002) Going postal: rage, science fiction and the ends of the American subject. In: Hollinger, V. and Gordon, J. (eds.) Edging into the Future: Science Fiction and Contemporary Cultural Transformation. Pennsylvania, USA: Pennsylvania University Press, pp. 142-156. ISBN 9780812236576.
Abstract
Book synopsis: Edging into the Future explores contemporary science fiction literature and media as imaginative expressions of an already science-fictional present and as literal descriptions of postmodern culture. Thirteen noted scholars and writers, including Brian Attebery, Gwyneth Jones, and Gary K. Wolfe, provide an overview of the state of contemporary science fiction and emphasize the diversity of ways in which science fiction as a narrative mode and as a social discourse comments upon contemporary cultural, political, and technological transformations. As the essays in Edging into the Future demonstrate, science fiction is both symptomatic of cultural disruption and change and an expression of our desire to give shape and meaning to that change. These essays examine a variety of science fiction forms, from literature to rock 'n' roll, and from film to anime and hypermedia, exploring such topics as generic transformation, the relationship of the body to technology, gender and sexuality, the construction of both individual and communal subjects, and the contemporary sense of an ending. They point to the intriguing directions in which science fiction continues to develop, while demonstrating that the challenge for the genre today is less to extrapolate a distant future than to keep up with a permanently mutable present in which genres, subjects, bodies, communities, and futures are all in flux. The essays in this collection, representing a multiplicity of perspectives, are bound together by their common focus on science fiction literature and media as forms of cultural expression uniquely suited to address the pressures and promises of contemporary culture.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication |
| Depositing User: | Sarah Hall |
| Date Deposited: | 10 Jul 2018 15:18 |
| Last Modified: | 09 Aug 2023 12:44 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/23090 |
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