by Rob Latham;
John B. Michel was one of the founding members of the science fiction fan group The Futurians in the early 1940s. A left-leaning association, the Futurians pushed the genre to mobilize its literary and cultural resources for social-utopian goals. Michel himself was a member of the Young Communist League and also of the Communist Party.
Wendy Pearson teaches in the Department of Women’s Studies and Feminist Research at the University of Western Ontario. Her areas of scholarly concentration include science fiction, film studies, and queer theory, and she coedited the anthology Queer Universes: Sexuality in Science Fiction (2008). Her essay included in this volume won the Pioneer Award from the Science Fiction Research Association for best critical article of the year in 2000.
John Rieder is professor of English at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. A senior editor of Extrapolation and a consulting editor of Science Fiction Studies, he is author of the pathbreaking study, Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction (2008). His essay included in this volume won the Pioneer Award from the Science Fiction Research Association for best critical article of the year in 2011.
Lysa Rivera is associate professor of English at Western Washington University, where she teaches in the areas of Chicano/a and African American literature and culture. Her work has appeared in a wide range of journals, including MELUS: Journal for the Study of Multiethnic Literature, Aztlán: Journal of Chicano Studies, and Science Fiction Studies. Her essay included in this volume won the Pioneer Award from the Science Fiction Research Association for best critical article of the year in 2013.
Joanna Russ was a major science fiction author and critic, one of the founders of an overtly feminist SF. Her novels include The Female Man (1975) and We Who Are About to . . . (1977), and she won both the Nebula and the Hugo Awards for her short fiction. Her collected essays and reviews were published in 2007 as The Country You Have Never Seen. In 1988, she received the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim Award for lifetime contributions to SF scholarship.
Mary Shelley, often cited as the founder of science fiction for her 1818 novel Frankenstein, was a major Gothic novelist, whose other science-fictional works include The Last Man (1826), a postapocalyptic fantasy. She was posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2004.
Stephen Hong Sohn is associate professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, where he specializes in Asian American literary and cultural studies. He is the author of Racial Asymmetries (2014) and editor of Transnational Asian American Literature: Sites and Transits (2006). In 2008, he coedited a special issue of MELUS: Journal for the Study of Multiethnic Literature on the theme of “Alien/Asian.”
Susan Sontag was one of the most important cultural commentators of the twentieth century. Her collections of essays include Against Interpretation (1966) and On Photography (1977), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her critical study Illness as Metaphor (1978) explored the implications of the cultural representation of disease.
Bruce Sterling is a science fiction writer and editor and a noted futurist. His novels include Islands in the Net (1988), which won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and Distraction (1999), which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award. During the 1980s, Sterling emerged as the major proponent of cyberpunk SF, editing the agenda-setting anthology Mirrorshades (1986).
Darko Suvin was, along with Richard D. Mullen, a founding editor of Science Fiction Studies. He is author of Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre (1979), Victorian Science Fiction in the UK: The Discourses of Knowledge and of Power (1983), and Positions and Presuppositions in Science Fiction (1988). In 1979, he received the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim Award for lifetime contributions to SF scholarship.
Vernor Vinge, professor emeritus of mathematics at San Diego State University, is a major science fiction author and scientific theorist. He has won the Hugo Award for best novel three times, for A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999), and Rainbow’s End (2006). His scientific work centers on theorizations of Artificial Intelligence and its cultural import.
Sherryl Vint is professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, where she directs the Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies Program. A senior editor of Science Fiction Studies, she is author of Bodies of Tomorrow: Technology, Subjectivity, Science Fiction (2007), Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal (2010), and Science Fiction: A Guide for the Perplexed (2014). Her 2007 essay on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? won the Pioneer Award from the Science Fiction Research Association for best critical article of the year.
H. G. Wells was probably the most important British author of science fiction of all time. His many “scientific romances”—including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), and The War of the Worlds (1898)—have been hugely influential in the field. A prolific author and activist, Wells was a founding member of PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists) International and served as the organization’s president from 1932–35.
David Wittenberg is professor of English and Cinematic Arts at the University of Iowa, where he teaches literary theory, twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature, and science fiction. His 2013 book Time Travel: The Popular Philosophy of Narrative received the Science Fiction and Technoculture Studies prize for best scholarly monograph exploring links between technoscience and popular culture.
Lisa Yaszek is professor of literature, media, and communication at Georgia Tech University. A past president of the Science Fiction Research Association, she is the author of Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women’s Science Fiction (2008) and coeditor of Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (2016). Her essay included in this volume won the Pioneer Award from the Science Fiction Research Association for best critical article of the year in 2005.
Index
NOTE: Page numbers in italics refer to pictures/photographs.
9/11 attacks here, here–here
21st Century Manzanar (Miyake) here–here, here–here
1984 (Orwell) here, here–here, here
2001: A Space Odyssey (film) here
absent paradigm here, here
Acampora, Ralph here
Acker, Kathy here
Ackerman, Forrest J. here
Acosta, Oscar Zeta here
Adaptation (Lo) here
Adeagbo, Georges here, here
Adorno, Theodor here, here
Adventures in Time and Space (Healy & McComas) here
The Adventures of Alyx (Russ) here
The Advocate (periodical) here, here
aesthetics
of destruction here–here
of science fiction here–here, here–here
traditional Japanese here–here, here
of uncanny here, here
After Democracy (Wells) here
Africa here–here, here, here, here, here–here
Afrofuturism here–here, here, here, here
and countermemory here
and digital music here, here
and extraterrestriality here–here
and museological institutions here
proleptic intervention here–here
and sonic fiction here, here–here
see also people of color; race/racism
AFSC, see American Friends Service Committee
Agamben, Giorgio here, here, here, here
The Age of the Pussyfoot (Pohl) here, here
Agorsah, E. Kofi here
AI, see artificial intelligence
Aiken, Conrad here
Akomfrah, John here
Aldiss, Brian here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Aldrich, Robert here
Alexander, W. here
Algonquin narratives here, here
alien/alienness here, here, here–here, here–here, here–here, here–here
animal aliens here
; Asians as here–here, here–here
“first contact” with here, here, here–here
invasion narratives here–here, here–here
invisibility of here–here, here
and language here, here–here
mid-century women narratives on here–here
in science fiction films here–here
typecasts here–here
Alien Toy (video installation: Torres) here
“All the Myriad Ways” (Niven) here–here
Almanac of the Dead (Silko) here
Alonso, Harriet Hyman here, here, here
alternate universes here–here
Altman, Rick here, here, here
alt.sex.fetish.robots (A.S.F.R.) here–here, here, here
Amazing Stories (periodical) here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
see also Gernsback, Hugo
American Apocalypses (Robinson) here
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) here
The American Japanese Problem: a Study of the Racial Relations of the East and the West (Gulick) here–here
American New Criticism here
American science fiction here–here, here, here
and British science fiction compared here, here, here
early audiences of here
history of here–here, here
nineteenth century here
see also Campbell, John W., Jr.
Amis, Kingsley here, here, here, here, here
Amis, Martin here
L’Amour Fou (Mad Love) (Breton) here–here, here
Analog (periodical) here, here, here
see also Astounding Stories
Anansi stories here
Anaya, Rudolfo here–here
Anderson, Benedict here
Anderson, M. Kat here
Anderson, Poul here, here
androids here–here, here, here–here, here
Andromeda (Yefremov) here, here–here
...And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (Rivera) here
Angenot, Marc here, here
animal(s)
animal aliens here
animal-machine hybrids here, here
anthropocentric vs. non-anthropocentric views of here–here, here–here
and boundary with humans here–here, here–here, here, here–here
and capitalism here, here, here
human-animal hybrids here–here
and philosophy here–here, here–here, here–here
in science fiction here, here, here–here, here, here–here, here, here, here
sentience and personhood of here–here, here
social relations with humans here, here–here, here–here, here–here
speciesism here–here, here–here, here–here, here, here
talking animals here–here, here
see also human-animal studies
Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal (Vint) here
Animal Liberation (Singer) here
The Animal That Therefore I Am (Derrida) here–here, here
anime here–here, here, here, here
see also Ghost in the Shell
Anticipations (Wells) here
anxiety here–here
about death here–here
about homosexuality here–here
about mutation from radioactive materials here
over Asia here–here
technological here
Anzaldúa, Gloria here, here, here
apocalyptic fiction, see disaster fiction
Arata, Stephen here
Arawak Indians here, here, here–here
Archaeologies of the Future (Jameson) here
Arendt, Hannah here
Argosy (periodical) here
Arkestra (jazz band) here
Arnold, Jack here
artificial beings here, here–here
desire/love for here–here
and gender here
performativity of here–here
and personhood here–here
see also androids; artificial women; cyborg(s); humanoids; robot(s)
artificial intelligence (AI) here–here, here, here, here
artificial women here–here
fetishism of here, here, here–here, here
and the uncanny here–here, here–here, here
unmasking of here–here, here–here, here, here–here, here–here, here
visual representation of here
see also alt.sex.fetish.robots; feminism; women
Ascension (Koyanagi) here
A.S.F.R., see alt.sex.fetish.robots
Asia/Asians
Asian Americans here, here, here–here, here
thematic linking of aliens with here–here, here
yellow peril fiction here, here, here
see also Orientalism; techno-Orientalism
The Asian Shore (Disch) here
Asimov, Isaac here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here
Assembly of First Nations and Seminole communities here
Astounding Stories (periodical) here, here, here, here, here, here
see also Analog
Atkins, Juan here
Atomic Energy Commission here
The Atrocity Exhibition (Ballard) here
Attack of the Puppet People (film) here
Attebery, Brian here, here, here
Atwood, Margaret here, here, here–here
Augustine, Saint here
Austin Powers (film) here
Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (Acosta) here
The Autocracy of Mr. Parham (Wells) here
Autodesk (firm) here, here
Avon Fantasy Reader (periodical) here
Bachelard, Gaston here
Back to the Future (film) here
Bakis, Kirsten here
Bald New World (Tieryas-Liu) here
“The Ballad of Juan Cortina” here
Ballard, J. G. here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here–here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here–here, here
Bal, Mieke here, here
Balzac, Honoré here, here, here
Banks, Iain M. here, here
Bao, Karen here
Baraka, Amiri here
Barlow, George here
Barnes, Myra here, here–here
Barrio Boy (Galarza) here
Barry Lyndon (film) here
Barthes, Roland here, here, here, here, here, here
Bates, Harry here
Battle in Outer Space (film) here, here
Baudelaire, Charles here, here
Baudrillard, Jean here, here, here, here, here, here
Bear, Elizabeth here
Bear, Greg here, here, here
Beck, Ulrich here
Behold the Man (Moorcock) here–here
Beiderbecke, Bix here
Bellamy, Edward here, here, here
Bell, Andrea here
Bell, Eric Temple, see Taine, John
Bellmer, Hans here, here, here–here, here, here–here
Bello, Walden here
Benet, Stephen Vincent here
Benford, Gregory here, here, here
Benjamin, Walter here, here, here
Bennett, Tony here, here
Beowulf here
Berger, John here, here, here, here
Bersani, Leo here
Besson, Luc here
Bester, Alfred here, here, here
The Best of Science Fiction (Conklin) here
Best Science Fiction Stories (Bleiler & Dikty) here
Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Freud) here, here–here, here, here, here
Beyond This Horizon (Heinlein) here, here
Bhabha, Homi K. here
Bible here–here
Bionic Woman (TV series) here
biopolitics here–here, here, here
biotechnology here–here, here
The Birth of Biopolitics (Foucault) here
The Black Atlantic (Gilroy) here
Black Audio Film Collective here–here
Black Christian Eschatology here
Black Power movement here
Blade Runner (film) here, here, here, here
Bleiler, Everett F. here, here, here
Blind Voices (Reamy) here–here
Blish, James here, here
Bloch, Iwan here, here
Blood Music (Bear) here, here, here
Bloom, Harold here
Blue Book (periodical) here, here
“The Blunder” (Wylie) here
Bocking, Stephen here
Bolton, Christopher here–here, here
borderlands science fiction here, here–here, here
and colonialism here–here, here, here–here
“future history” here, here, here
political activism in here, here–here, here, here, here
see also Latin American science fiction
Borges, Jorge Luis here, here
Boucher, Anthony here, here
Bould, Mark here, here, here, here, here
Bourdieu, Pierre here, here, here
Bowker, Geoffrey here, here, here–here
Bracero Program here–here, here, here
Brackett, Leigh here, here
Bradbury, Ray here, here, here
Braidotti, Rosi here, here–here, here
Brantlinger, Patrick here
Brautigan, Richard here
Brave New World (Huxley) here
Brecht, Bertolt here, here, here, here–here, here
Breton, Andre here–here, here, here
Breur, Miles J. here
Brigg, Peter here
“Bright Illusion” (Moore) here
“Brightness Falls from the Air” (St. Clair) here
Brin, David here
British science fiction here
and American science fiction compared here, here, here
matriarchy in here
post-war disaster fiction here–here
Broderick, Damien here, here
Broodthaers, Marcel here
Brooke-Rose, Christine here, here
Brooks, Peter here, here
“Brothers from Another Planet” (Corbett) here
Brown, Fredric here
Brown Girl in the Ring (Hopkinson) here, here–here, here, here–here
