This paper finds its origin in a debate between Georges Bataille (1897-1962) and Octavio Paz (1914-1998) on what is central to the idea of eroticism. Bataille posits that violence and transgression are fundamental to eroticism, and without prohibition, eroticism would cease to exist. Paz, however, views violence and transgression as merely intersecting with, rather than being intrinsic to, eroticism. Paz places focus on imagination, and transforms eroticism from a transgressive, to a ritualistic act. Eroticism thus functions as an intermediary, turning (...) animal sexuality into ceremony and rite. In this paper, I argue that Paz and Bataille are not fundamentally at odds in their conceptualisation of eroticism. Instead, Paz redefines the locus of eroticism by subverting its unsettling aspects. His conception of eroticism gives precedence to the imagination, which in itself is an act of violation. Imagination transgresses normal life, but this transgression – the violation of the habitual world – also introduces a glimpse of the numinous that Paz associates with belongingness. The paper further explores eroticism, as this is perceived today, and argues that it ultimately eliminates the threshold marked by transgression. The rise of the contemporary pornographic society is marked by a loss of imagination and transcendence, which ultimately reduces the subject into a mere automaton that demands instant gratification. (shrink)

This book considers the significance of this confluence through an examination of myths in the writings of H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert. Presenting fresh insights into their works, the author brings to light the tendency of science fiction narratives to reaffirm spiritual myths.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Indian Science Fiction: Patterns, History and Hybridity by Suparno BanerjeeBarnita BagchiSuparno Banerjee. Indian Science Fiction: Patterns, History and Hybridity. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2020. xiii + 256 pp. E-book, ISBN 9781786836670.Suparno Banerjee’s monograph examines science fiction (henceforth SF) from India, a country that has a rich and fascinating tradition of SF. This is a book that will be of interest and value to scholars (...) and students in higher education of utopia, dystopia, and speculative fiction, and to readers across disciplines interested in SF as a mode. It is quite clear today that Darko Suvin’s canonical definition of SF as cognitive estrangement, an interplay between the familiar and the strange, and its emphasis on the novum that is created in SF, has been enriched with further attention to context, including postcolonial contexts. Whose familiarity in cognition are we speaking about, and what happens when contexts are not necessarily hegemonic Anglo-American or Western ones? Indeed, even in Western contexts, science is not a given, but an element that always has political, historical, and ideological overtones. The novum, too, as with the term utopia, is moored in the contexts of the text.Banerjee’s book is one among several excellent monographs on Indian SF that have been published in the 2020s: Sami Ahmad Khan’s Star Warriors of the Modern Raj: Materiality, Mythology and Technology of Indian Science Fiction (2021) and Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee’s Final Frontiers: Science Fiction and Techno-Science in Non-Aligned India (2020) come to mind. Khan adopts a refreshing fan’s guide to Indian SF register in his monograph, discussing mythology, materiality, ideology, and technology, and he coins the abbreviation TransMIT to capture his approach. Mukherjee’s book examines how Indian SF syncs with or questions the technological and scientific paradigms of India under Nehru and the Non-Aligned Movement; arguing that Indian SF needs to be seen as semiperipheral, the book also applies concepts from energy humanities [End Page 586] to Indian SF in an arresting way. Suparno Banerjee’s monograph is a solidly grounded work in its clearly explained choice of corpus, and a methodology that elicits particularly generative insights in a number of areas, including the epistemological status of science in Indian SF, the importance of SF written in bhasha or non-English Indian languages, the interplay between past and future in Indian SF, analysis of how Indian SF imaginatively represents the Other, and attention to Indian women writers of SF.Banerjee offers a lucid and useful chronology of Indian SF in four historical periods: 1835–1905, 1905–47, 1947–95, and 1995–2019. The period from 1835 to 1905 offers the first specimens of Indian SF, primarily in the form of future histories that question colonialism, in the utopian mode, and adventure tales and stories with scientific and technological elements. The establishment of a British education system, starting in the 1820s, gave an impetus to the birth of Indian SF. Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s “Sultana’s Dream” was published in 1905, a year that heralds the second period lasting until Indian independence. In this period, SF starts appearing not just in the English, Bengali, and Hindi languages, as in the first period, but also in a number of other Indian languages, such as Assamese, Marathi, and Tamil. Children’s and youth magazines develop from the 1920s, spaces where science writing and SF both appear. Nationalist, anticolonial stances emerge, challenging western hegemony, in the 1940s. In the early post-Independence period, the nationalistic elements become even stronger, and SF interacts quite strongly with older forms of fantastic writing such as myths, fairytales, and ghost stories. This third period, Banerjee argues, is the golden age of bhasha SF. From the 1990s English-language SF again becomes very prominent in India and its diaspora, though SF in bhashas continues to flourish.Banerjee examines fiction not just from post-Independence India, but also from colonial British India, and diasporic Indian writing. SF written primarily in Bengali, English, Hindi, and Marathi is examined and, when possible, the book also brings into its ambit of analysis SF written in the languages Assamese, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. Reflexivity about the corpus of... (shrink)

Depictions of children in British science fiction and horror films in the early 1960s introduced a new but dominant trope: the ‘extraordinary’ child. Extraordinary children, I suggest, are disturbing because they violate expected developmental norms, drawing on discourses from both the ‘psy’ sciences and early neuroscience. This post-war trope has been considered by film and literature scholars in the past five years, but this existing work tends to present the extraordinary child as an American phenomenon, and links these depictions (...) to adults’ psychoanalytical anxieties about parenthood and the family. This article, considering Village of the Damned (1960), Children of the Damned (1963), The Damned (1963), and Lord of the Flies (1963), will contend that the extraordinary child was British before it was American, and tapped as much into nuclear anxieties generated by the early Cold War as fears about the ‘permissive society’, especially given that many of these films preceded the peak of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ and were based on British science fiction of the 1950s. The ‘psy science’ that was dominant in these films was developmental psychology, not psychoanalysis. Moreover, adolescents as well as adults were key audiences for these films. Drawing on self-narrative essays written by English adolescents aged 14 to 16 between 1962 and 1966, I will demonstrate that this age group employed their own fears of nuclear war and their knowledge of psychological language to challenge adult authority, presenting a counter-narrative to adult conceptions of the abnormal and irresponsible ‘rising generation’. (shrink)

The dictionary tells us that metalinguistics is simply "the study of the interrelationship between language and other cultural behavioral phenomena."1 However, because most studies are in fact expressed in language, the study itself becomes a candidate for metalinguistic inquiry. In other words, language is not only capable of interrelationships with kinship systems or economic systems or rituals but it is capable of intrarelationships. . . . Language often becomes a subject in science fiction because science fiction writers realize (...) that they must account for the communication between characters from different planets or different epochs. Wells' Time Traveller, when he first encounters the effete and childlike Eloi, notices that they speak "a strange and very sweet and liquid tongue" which he never does come to understand. This failure of understanding is realistic and leads to some lovely pathos as the Time Traveller tries to apprehend a world solely by means of observation and exchanges of facial expression and gesture. Although language conveniently drops from consideration once it is established that there won't be any significant talking, that it is considered at all adds plausibility to this fantastic tale. · 1. American Heritage Dictionary, New College Edition, 1976. Eric S. Rabkin, professor of English and director of the Collegiate Institute for Values and Science at the University of Michigan, is the author of Narrative Suspense, The Fantastic in Literature, Arthur C. Clarke and the editor of Fantastic Worlds: Myths, Tales, and Stories. His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, "Spatial Form and Plot," appeared in the Winter 1977 issue. See also: "The Shape of the Signifier" by Walter Benn Michaels in Vol. 27, No. 2. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Found in Translation: “New People” in Twentieth-Century Chinese Science Fiction by Jing JiangYingying HuangJing Jiang. Found in Translation: “New People” in Twentieth-Century Chinese Science Fiction. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021. 144 pp. Paperback, ISBN 9780924304941.One of the Association of Asian Studies’ Asia Shorts series, Jing Jiang’s monograph is a delightful 130-page read including notes and a bibliography. It contributes new and cross-cultural perspectives to the (...) Chinese SF scholarship that has recently been invigorated by a plethora of translations into English, animated discussions at conference panels and themed lectures, and book-length studies such as Nathaniel Isaacson’s Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction (2017), which focuses on China’s early twentieth century, and Hua Li’s Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw (2021), which deals with works published between 1978 and 1981, to name just a couple. Jiang’s book covers both periods and the time in between with a purpose to investigate “how Chinese science fiction participates and intervenes in Chinese conceptualizations of the modern at critical junctures over the last century” (1), which Jiang achieves through comparative readings of texts brought into dialogue via translation. A shared theme of the texts studied is, as the book title suggests, the creation of a “new people,” either through edification or high-tech means such as bioengineering. Therefore, the interventions by science fiction that this study is concerned with are chiefly in debates about modern citizenry, subjectivity, and humanity in China’s twentieth century, when science fiction enjoyed its first two “booms.”This book has an introduction, four chapters, and an epilogue. The introduction offers a brief history of Chinese science fiction and announces the author’s intention to “situate Chinese science fiction within a dynamic model of world literature” (2). Jiang makes two crucial points: first, Chinese science fiction is a product of translation and transculturation, which [End Page 591] requires an intertextual and comparative study; second, contrary to its designation as a popular genre in the West, science fiction in China has been a form of elite literature and even a part of statist thinking. While this introduction may seem a bit long for a short book with “conciseness” as one of its marketing guidelines—the account of Lu Xun’s early life and turn to literature, for example, may be a little too elaborate for its purpose (10–12)—it lays a solid foundation for discussions about science fiction’s translingual dimensions and role in China’s nation-building discourse to develop through the chapters.The expansive first chapter, “Medicine for the Mind, Panacea for the Nation: How Did the Stories of Science and Fiction Become One?” is yet another historical survey, occasionally repeating points from the introduction, but this time of the background, genesis, and early growth of science fiction in China from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century (i.e., the late Qing dynasty [1644–1911] and early Republican era [1912–49]). Jiang gives a detailed account of occurrences deemed important to the rise and confluence of fiction and science within China’s nation-building discourse, including literati intellectuals’ promotion of “new fiction” and the dissemination of scientific knowledge, highlighting the roles played by central figures like Liang Qichao, Lu Xun, and John Fryer. Jiang makes the illuminating observation that Fryer’s stipulation of a “new novel” for a fiction contest he organized in Shanghai in 1895 foreshadowed China’s literary realism and the vernacular movement (30), and her remarks about translation, Chinese science fiction’s inherent hybridity, and its mission to cure the nation well echo the book’s central argument about the genre’s interventions.A shorter chapter follows, entitled “Scientifically Formed or Reformed: Bioengineering and Other Fantasies about a New Species of National Subjects,” which examines early science fiction stories about manufacturing humanity and argues that these texts “gave rise to a literary vision that believed literally in the malleability or programmability of the soul” (39). During the first boom of Chinese science fiction in the 1900s, translations of and sequels to Western stories showcase the debate about science’s power of shaping the soul... (shrink)

Ian Duncan’s Human Forms and Devin Griffiths’s Age of Analogy attempt to illuminate inter­actions between evolutionary theories and literature from the late eighteenth century up through the nineteenth century. They do not advance knowledge about this subject. Both authors treat evolution as a semi-fictional construction that owes more to literary inspiration than to the scientific method, and they reduce literature to a battleground for ideological forces. They write using dense terminology, shifting rhetoric, and flights of verbal performance that obscure their (...) claims. In all these respects, they are representative of the field “science and literature”-and particularly of the subfield that studies evolution and literature. I analyze the history of this subfield of literary scholarship and attempt to explain how it developed into its present form. The subfield was founded in the 1980s on the basis of poststructuralist theory and has never escaped the core assumptions of that theory: our minds cannot reach outside culture; our thoughts, behaviors, and ideas about the world are primarily the result of our culture; some cultural traditions are oppressive while others are liberating; and the meaning of texts cannot be determined. Though Duncan and Griffiths represent the highest level of schol­arship on evolution and literature, I argue that they fail their fascinating subject by offering very little that is new within their own field, and nothing that is of value to other fields. (shrink)

David Hume's early philosophy appeals to fiction and artifice to explain several important features in our cognitive and social activity. In this dissertation, I develop a typology of Humean fictions and artifices to clarify and render his account consistent. In so doing, I identify a special class of fictions I divide into natural fictions and natural artifices. I argue that this special class of fictions represents a significant break with prior English-speaking philosophers, such as Francis Bacon and John Locke, (...) in so far as these fictions and artifices of the imagination are recognized as natural, irresistible, and pragmatically useful in human cognition and social activity. That fictions and artifices are naturally generated by the imagination in epistemic and moral contexts, I argue, is a watershed discovery in the history of philosophy. Indeed, it is a philosophical conclusion that poses serious, perhaps fatal, problems for philosophers who espouse thoroughgoing realist positions. More broadly, Hume's pursuit of applying the experimental method to the moral subject reveals that human nature is mightily governed by the imagination, and that fictions and artifices are ubiquitous across the domains of science, morality, theology, logic, mathematics, and philosophy. For that reason, I suggest Hume ought to be recognized as a central figure in the history of philosophical fictionalism. Specifically, via a comparative analysis of Hume and Hans Vaihinger, I make the case that Hume functions as a vital link between Hobbes, Berkeley, and Kant in the development of early modern fictionalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 30.1 (2006) 299-309 [Access article in PDF] Conscious Fiction Mary Clayton Coleman Bard College Consciousness and the Novel: Connected Essays, by David Lodge; 320 pp. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002, $24.95 boards, $16.95 paper. Fictional Minds, by Alan Palmer; 275 pp. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2004, $45.00. Radiant Cool: A Novel Theory of Consciousness, by Dan Lloyd; 357 pp. Cambridge, Mass.: The (...) MIT Press, 2004, $24.95 boards, $14.95 paper. What contributions can fiction make to the representation and investigation of conscious experience? Might fiction help us to develop and advance new theories about the nature of consciousness? And might such theories, in turn, inform our understanding of the process of reading fiction? Three recent volumes—one by English critic and novelist, David Lodge; another by literary theorist, Alan Palmer; and a third by philosopher and (now) novelist, Dan Lloyd—raise these important, genre-bending questions, and they offer challenging if not always convincing answers to them. More generally, these volumes make valuable contributions to the fruitful cross-pollination that has developed between philosophers, scientists, literary theorists, and novelists who are interested in the nature of consciousness.Lodge's new collection of essays is called Consciousness and the Novel: Connected Essays, and like all of the criticism he has written since the late eighties, this volume is intended for a general audience, not for [End Page 299] literary theorists. The title essay, "Consciousness and the Novel," is a revised version of the Richard Ellman Lectures in Modern Literature that Lodge gave at Emory University in 2001, and the other nine essays, all previously published, cover such topics as Howards End; the novels of Evelyn Waugh; The Letters of Kingsley Amis; Martin Amis's memoir, Experience; and the relationship between literature and criticism. I will focus on "Consciousness and the Novel."Lodge's thesis in this essay is that novels play an essential role in our exploration of the nature of human consciousness. This thesis is certainly true, but it is also entirely banal. Much more interesting is what Lodge says in support of it. He argues that because of the unique representative possibilities of the novel, conscious experiences can be represented more effectively in novels than they can be in scientific writing. Taken literally, as an assertion about the relative representational power of novels and scientific discourse, this is extremely implausible. However, taken more loosely—as an invitation to those of us interested in consciousness to take a closer look at the ways conscious experiences are represented in novels—Lodge's claim is sensible and appealing. I will consider the literal reading of Lodge's claim first and then turn to the looser one.It is undoubtedly true that, as a whole, novelists devote more energy to representing conscious experiences than writers of scientific discourse do. However, science writers can use whatever techniques best serve their aims, including the aim of describing conscious experiences, so there is no reason to think that conscious experiences can, in principle, be represented more effectively in novels than in broadly scientific discourse. Given that Lodge discusses such creative science writers as Antonio Damasio, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker in the course of his essay, it is surprising and disappointing to find him caricature scientific writing in the following way: "science... is a third-person discourse. The first-person pronoun is not used in scientific papers. If there were any hint of qualia in a scientific paper... it would be edited out" (p. 11). Qualia are the supposedly subjective qualitative aspects of conscious experiences. How the plucked string of a cello sounds to you; how the rotting fish in the garbage smells to you; and how it feels for you to inch down into the smooth, almost-too-hot water of a perfect bubble bath—these are all (supposedly) examples of qualia. Lodge is simply mistaken when he says that there is no hint of qualia in scientific writing. There is no consensus about whether qualia can be explained scientifically. In fact, there is no consensus about whether they exist. [End Page... (shrink)

This concise volume addresses the question of whether or not language, and its structure in literary discourses, determines individuals' mental 'vision, ' employing an innovative cross-disciplinary approach using readers' drawings of their mental imagery during reading. The book engages in critical dialogue with the perceived wisdom in stylistics rooted in Roger Fowler's seminal work on deixis and point of view to test whether or not this theory can fully account for what readers see in their mind's eye and how they (...) see it. The work draws on findings from a study of English and Dutch across a range of literary texts, in which participants read literary text fragments and were then asked to immediately draw representations of what they had seen envisioned. Building on the work of Fowler and more recent theoretical and empirical language-based studies in the area, Klomberg, Schilhab and Burke argue that models from embodied cognitive science can help account for anomalies in evidence from readers' drawings, indicating new ways forward for interdisciplinary understandings of individual meaning construction in literary textual interfaces. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in stylistics, cognitive psychology, rhetoric, and philosophy, particularly those working in embodied cognition. (shrink)

The theme of The Planetary Clock is the representation of time in postmodern culture and the way temporality as a global phenomenon manifests itself differently across an antipodean axis. To trace postmodernism in an expansive spatial and temporal arc, from its formal experimentation in the 1960s to environmental concerns in the twenty-first century, is to describe a richer and more complex version of this cultural phenomenon. Exploring different scales of time from a Southern Hemisphere perspective, with a special emphasis on (...) issues of Indigeneity and the Anthropocene, The Planetary Clock offers a wide-ranging, revisionist account of postmodernism, reinterpreting literature, film, music, and visual art of the post-1960 period within a planetary framework. By bringing the culture of Australia and New Zealand into dialogue with other Western narratives, it suggests how an antipodean impulse, involving the transposition of the world into different spatial and temporal dimensions, has long been an integral (if generally occluded) aspect of postmodernism. Taking its title from a Florentine clock designed in 1510 to measure worldly time alongside the rotation of the planets, The Planetary Clock ranges across well-known American postmodernists (John Barth, Toni Morrison) to more recent science fiction writers (Octavia Butler, Richard Powers), while bringing the US tradition into juxtaposition with both its English (Philip Larkin, Ian McEwan) and Australian (Les Murray, Alexis Wright) counterparts. By aligning cultural postmodernism with music (Messiaen, Ligeti, Birtwistle), the visual arts (Hockney, Blackman, Fiona Hall), and cinema (Rohmer, Haneke, Tarantino), this volume enlarges our understanding of global postmodernism for the twenty-first century. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading the Mind:From George Eliot's Fiction to James Sully's PsychologyVanessa L. RyanWhat is the function and value of fiction? Debates over these questions involve considerations that range from aesthetics to ethics, from the intrinsic values of the genre to its moral effects. Recently, largely under the influence of the cognitive sciences, the question has taken on a new cast: might science give us a new answer to these (...) long-standing issues? Studies such as Lisa Zunshine's Why We Read Fiction (2006), John Carey's What Good Are the Arts? (2005), and Alan Palmer's Fictional Minds (2004) are part of a growing area of interdisciplinary work on the relationship between art and consciousness.1 This body of work asks not just how our theories of consciousness inform our understanding of the process and function of [End Page 615] reading fiction, but also whether fiction itself might provide a key to new theories about the nature of consciousness.The nineteenth-century novel is often considered the high point in the literary representation of mind. Indeed, the terms "psychology" and "novel" are explicitly yoked in the nineteenth-century with the simultaneous emergence of both as discrete forms of intellectual and artistic activity. Not surprisingly, George Eliot has come to be identified with the term "psychological novel": in fact, Nicholas Dames argues that she was the first to couple the words psychology and novel in this way in an 1855 review where she contrasted Charles Kingsley's historical romance Westward Ho! with "those 'psychological' novels."2 While George Eliot initially used the phrase in what Dames calls "mock disdain," by the end of the nineteenth century the term "psychological novel" had gained currency as a straightforward description of a type of Victorian novel: Wilbur Cross, in his summary The Development of the English Novel, for example, describes the form as "stressing an inner sequence of thought and feeling, which is brought into harmony with an ethical formula and accounted for in an analysis of motive." Along with Elizabeth Gaskell and George Meredith, Cross also cites George Eliot as one of his central examples of the "psychological novel."3It seems natural, then, when a critic asks, "what is the special distinguishing function of the modern art of fiction?" to turn for an answer to George Eliot's novels and their close connections with psychological science. It is perhaps surprising that this still-current question was posed by the nineteenth-century psychologist James Sully (1842–1923) in an 1881 article in the journal Mind on "George Eliot's Art."4 His essay offers us a Victorian contribution to questions about the relationship of literature and psychology that are being addressed today by critics such as Sally Shuttle-worth, Athena Vrettos, Kay Young, Nicholas Dames, or Rick Rylance, especially [End Page 616] with respect to George Eliot. James Sully's essay not only provides valuable insight into how the Victorians themselves understood the role of psychology in the novel, but also helps to place contemporary debates about fiction and consciousness into sharper relief.In the wake of important studies, such as Rylance's Victorian Psychology and British Culture (2000), that have brought renewed attention to nineteenth-century British psychology, recent scholarship has shown the central role of Victorian debates about the mind in shaping the fiction of the period.5 Nineteenth-century mental science provided material and inspiration for works of literature, with imaginative writers eager to exploit and develop the narrative and thematic potential of contemporary psychological discourse and probe the problems it raised. Novelists such as Wilkie Collins, George Eliot, and Henry James turned to some of the most current work in the science of the mind, which they saw as the most sophisticated and credible approach to psychological realism available. These and other novelists rapidly absorbed the central terms of the new science as it considered problems of consciousness, identity, and memory, and brought them to life by dramatizing and questioning them in their fiction. James Sully's interest in George Eliot reflects this fruitful mid- to late-nineteenth-century cross-pollination between philosophers, scientists, and novelists who were interested in the nature of consciousness, psychology... (shrink)

I argue that sich vorstellen (‘imagine’) in German, similar to English imagine, has a use as a fiction verb and a use as a verb of thinking. I follow Vendler (Rev Métaphys Morale 84(2):161–173, 1979) in assuming that the fiction verbs like vorstellen can be used to report acts of subjective imagination (imagined inner experiences) and acts of objective imagination (imagined outer experiences). For sich vorstellen as a verb of thinking we have to distinguish between a use on which (...) it introduces an activity and takes interrogative complements and DPs on a concealed question interpretation as arguments and a use on which it introduces an attitudinal state that can be characterized as betting on the truth of a proposition in a given subject matter. Given the differences in grammar and interpretation I argue that we have to distinguish four lexical entries for German sich vorstellen: imagine$$_{{\textsc {exp}}-{\textsc {sbj}}}$$ E X P - S B J, imagine$$_{{\textsc {exp}}{-}{\textsc {obj}}}$$ E X P - O B J, imagine$$_{\textsc {prop-act}}$$ P R O P - A C T, imagine$$_{\textsc {prop-state}}$$ P R O P - S T A T E. Having laid out all the necessary distinctions to account for the data, I discuss the prospects of reducing the number of lexical entries. I propose that imagine$$_{{\textsc {exp}}-{\textsc {sbj}}}$$ E X P - S B J and imagine$$_{{\textsc {exp}}{-}{\textsc {obj}}}$$ E X P - O B J could be reduced to imagine$$_{\textsc {prop-act}}$$ P R O P - A C T if we assume that all reports of experiential imagining can be reduced to reports of propositional imagining that combine the predicate imagine$$_{\textsc {prop-act}}$$ P R O P - A C T with a question of the kind ‘what would it be like?’, following an idea in D’Ambrosio and Stoljar (Synthese 199:12923–12944, 2021). Under this assumption only two lexical entries are needed: an entry for imagine$$_{\textsc {prop-act}}$$ P R O P - A C T, a rogative predicate that introduces activities, and imagine$$_{\textsc {prop-state}}$$ P R O P - S T A T E an attitude predicate that takes propositions as arguments and introduces an attitudinal state. The overall result is that the grammar and interpretation of the fiction verb sich vorstellen is much closer to verbs of thinking than one might imagine. (shrink)

The essays gathered here demonstrate and justify the excitement and promise of cognitive historicism, providing a lively introduction to this new and quickly growing area of literary studies. Written by eight leading critics whose work has done much to establish the new field, they display the significant results of a largely unprecedented combination of cultural and cognitive analysis. The authors explore both narrative and dramatic genres, uncovering the tensions among presumably universal cognitive processes, and the local contexts within which complex (...) literary texts are produced. Alan Richardson's opening essay evaluates current approaches to the study of literature and cognition, locating them on the map of recent literary studies, indicating their most compelling developments to date, and suggesting the most promising future directions. The seven essays that follow provide innovative readings of topics ranging from Shakespeare (Othello, Macbeth, Cymbeline, The Rape of Lucrece) through Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, to contemporary authors Ian McEwan and Gilbert Sorrentino. They underscore some of the limitations of new historicist and post-structuralist approaches to literary cultural studies while affirming the value of supplementing rather than supplanting them with insights and methods drawn from cognitive and evolutionary theory. Together, they demonstrate the analytical power of considering these texts in the context of recent studies of cultural universals, 'theory of mind, ' cognitive categorization and genre, and neural-materialist theories of language and consciousness. This groundbreaking collection holds appeal for a broad audience, including students and teachers of literary theory, literary history, cultural studies, and literature and science studies. (shrink)

Here is an in-depth look at the role myth, mortality, and religion play in J. R. R. Tolkien's works such as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion -- including Tolkien's private letters and revealing opinions of his own work. Richard L. Purtill brilliantly argues that Tolkien's extraordinary ability to touch his readers' lives through his storytelling -- so unlike much modern literature -- accounts for his enormous literary success. This book demonstrates the moral depth in Tolkien's (...) work and cuts through current subjectivism and cynicism about morality. A careful reader will find a subtle religious dimension to Tolkien's work -- all the more potent because it is below the surface. Purtill reveals that the author's fantasy stories creatively incorporate profound religious and ethical ideas. For example, Purtill shows us how hobbits reflect both the pettiness of unimaginative parochial humanity and the unexpected heroism of ordinary people in crisis. Purtill effectively addresses larger issues of the place of myth, the relation of religion and morality to literature, the relation of Tolkien's work to traditional mythology, modern fantasy and science fiction, and the lessons Tolkien's work teaches that are applicable to our own lives. Book jacket. (shrink)

The experienced qualities of memories of factual and fictional events have been little researched previously. The few studies that exist find no or few differences. However, one reason to expect differences in memory qualities is that processing of fact and fiction seem to involve activation of different brain areas. The present study expands earlier research by including a wider range of memory qualities, using positive and negative events, and three time-points: immediately after, after a ten-minute delay and after a five-week (...) delay. Participants (N = 52) read four short stories in English, labelled either fact or fiction, and rated memory qualities on 7-point scales. Results show no differences; however, an interaction was found between fictionality and story emotional valence, in that memories of negative fictional stories are rated as more clear. The higher clarity can be explained by previous findings that negative events from stories are in general remembered in more detail, in combination with the idea that fiction entails simulation to a higher degree than fact. The conclusion is that although a difference in memory qualities between fact and fiction was found in one case, memory qualities seem not to play an operative role when the memory system distinguishes fact from fiction. (shrink)

Continental authors and editors often sought to ground alchemical writing within a long-established, coherent and pan-European tradition, appealing to the authority of adepts from different times and places. Greek, Latin and Islamic alchemists met both in person and between the covers of books, in actual, fictional or coincidental encounters: a trope utilised in Michael Maier’s Symbola aureae mensae duodecim nationum. This essay examines how works attributed to an English authority, George Ripley, were received in central Europe and incorporated into (...) continental compendia. Placed alongside works by the philosophers of other nations, Ripley’s writings helped affirm the unity and truth of alchemy in defiance of its critics. His continental editors were therefore concerned not only with the provenance of manuscripts and high-quality exemplars, but by a range of other factors, including the desire to suppress controversial material, intervene in contemporary polemics, and defend their art. In the resulting compilations, the vertical axis of alchemy’s long, diachronic tradition may be compared to the horizontal plane of pan-European alchemy. (shrink)

The gift of death and the new magic of politics: Hegel and Tolkien on sorcery and secondary worlds -- The political theology of catastrophe: Plato's Athenian Atlantis, Tolkien's Númenoran Atalantë, and the Nazi Reich -- Burglar and bourgeois? Bilbo Baggins' dialectical ethics -- Hobbes, Hobbits, and the modern state of Mordor: myths of power and desire in Leviathan and Tolkien's Legendarium -- Middle-earth and the return of the common good -- Epilogue: from apocalypse to eucatastrophe: "The end of history," happy (...) endings, and the politics of narrative form. (shrink)

The English language has adopted the word Tardis for something that looks simple from the outside but is much more complicated when inspected from the inside. The word comes from a BBC science fiction series, in which the Tardis is a machine for traveling in time and space, that looks like a phone booth from the outside. This paper claims that simulation models are a Tardis in a way that calls into question their transferability. The argument is developed (...) taking Molecular Modeling and Simulation as an example. There, simulation models are force fields that describe the molecular interactions and that look like simple and highly modular mathematical expressions. To make them work, they contain parameters that are adjusted to match certain data. The role of these parameters and the way they are obtained is seriously under-appreciated. It is constitutive for the model and central for its applicability and performance. Hence, the model is more than it seems so that working with adjustable parameters deeply affects the ontology of simulation models. This is particularly crucial for the transferability of the models: the information on how a model was trained is like luggage the model must carry on its voyage. (shrink)

Italian Abstract: Il testo propone una rilettura critica della filosofia di Croce, articolata attorno ai quei due snodi che la teoria degli «pseudoconcetti» mira a trattare unitariamente: il finzionale e l’istituzionale. Tentando di rinnovare il nominalismo e contro ogni ipostatizzazione metafisica, lo pseudoconcetto si incarica di rendere conto della logica dell’astratto e dell’‘empirico’: le leggi, i tipi, i modelli e gli schemi delle scienze sociali, ma anche le istituzioni e le leggi degli ordinamenti giuridici, politici ed economici. Donde la riconfigurazione, (...) elaborata congiuntamente con la costruzione della filosofia della pratica, del rapporto tra filosofia e scienze, finzione e realtà, vero e utile, conoscere e volere, legge e libertà. Muovendo dal dibattito epistemologico con Pareto sino ad arrivare al dibattito su liberismo e liberalismo con Einaudi, il testo problematizza il senso del nesso crociano tra finzioni-istituzioni e Realtà-Spirito-Libertà, onde tentare di ripensare, con Croce ma oltre Croce, l’istituzionale e il finzionale come strutture dogmatiche (istituite e istituenti), dove la posta in gioco, nel bene e nel male, è la libertà umana nella sua contingente e indeducibile concretezza. -/- English Abstract: This book provides a critical analysis of Croce’s epistemology and practical philosophy, articulated around the two pillars that the theory of “pseudo-concepts” aims to treat as a unit: the fictional and the institutional. Trying to renew nominalism and against any metaphysical hypostasis, the theory of pseudo-concepts is committed to account for the logic of the abstract and the empirical: laws, types and models of social sciences, but also legal political and economic institutions and laws, in an attempts to reconfigure the relationship between philosophy and science, fiction and reality, knowledge and will, law and liberty. Moving from the epistemological debate with Pareto on the foundation of Economics up to the debate with Einaudi on the nexus between Liberism and Liberalism, the text aims, with and beyond Croce’s philosophy, to rethink the fictional and the institutional as dogmatic structures, “instituted and instituting”, where the stakes are ultimately, for better or for worse, human freedom in its contingent and non-deductible concreteness. (shrink)

H G WellsHerbert George Wells, an English writer, was born on 21st 1866 and died on 13 Aug 1946. He was renowned for his works of science fiction especially 'The Time Machine'. He is also referred as 'The Father of Science Fiction'.

One of the key concepts of naturalized epistemology as well as the cognitive sciences that stem from it is the naturalized concept of mental representation. Within this naturalized concept, many attempts have been made to unify the notion of representation error. This text makes an attempt to argue against the adequacy of using a naturalized concept of representation error as well as casts doubt on the wide program of naturalizing concepts related to human conceptuality.

El materialismo de la Edad Moderna nos describe al hombre como una máquina, comparable a un complejo artilugio mecánico. Cabe entonces imaginar que una máquina no-biológica pueda constituir un ser pensante como lo son los seres humanos, e incluso cabría pensar en la posibilidad de codificación de una mente humana real para su posterior trasvase a un sustrato artificial. Considero que estas últimas posiciones son más propias de la cultura friki o de amantes de la ciencia ficción que de una (...) cultura humanista seria. En cualquier caso, una cosa parece clara: la simulación por ordenador de cualquier tipo de materia no es la materia misma. Una simulación por ordenador de una estrella no emite luz ni calor, y del mismo modo tampoco ofrece calor humano (en términos materiales) ni voluntad de vivir una máquina que hipotéticamente pueda contener toda la información sobre el ser humano y simular sus respuestas. -/- English translation: The materialism of the Modern Age describes human beings as machines, comparable to complex mechanical devices. It is then possible to imagine that a non-biological machine can constitute a thinking being as humans are, and one could even think of the possibility of coding a real human mind for its subsequent transfer to an artificial substrate. I think that these latter positions are more typical of the geek culture or of science fiction lovers than of a serious humanist culture. In any case, one thing seems clear: the computer simulation of any type of matter is not the matter itself. A computer simulation of a star does not emit light or heat, and likewise a machine that hypothetically can contain all the information about a human being and simulate his/her responses offers neither human heat (in material terms) nor will to live. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Comic RomanceBenjamin La FargeIOn the surface, it would seem that nothing could be more different from comedy than romance. Comedy deflates, romance inflates. Comedy is realistic, romance fantastical. Comedy reduces, romance elevates. Comedy is democratic, romance heroic. Yet there are underlying similarities. Both involve a conflict between destructive and restorative impulses. In both, appearances are typically mistaken for reality, and both end happily. Above all, both are governed by (...) a structure of illogical logic that generates laughter in one and fantasy in the other.The generic differences between comedy and romance are crucial to a proper understanding of their functions. Comedy celebrates the renewal of life, the relation of man to woman and of man to man, in a spirit of tolerant acceptance, while romance celebrates a narcissistic dream of the self. If the former is best enjoyed in a crowded theater, the latter is usually enjoyed in solitude. Romance is a fiction of wish fulfillment. Since wishful thinking is generally understood as childish, romance is often regarded as a poor cousin among literary genres, haughtily dismissed by highbrows who associate it with the infantile pleasures of their childhood reading and with lowbrow fiction in general. This is precisely why so many sophisticated readers are reluctant to grant science fiction and other forms of fantasy any enduring literary value. In their view the pleasures of such works can not be taken seriously.Yet those childhood pleasures have a lasting appeal that lingers in the mind of every adult. There must be few grown readers who do not harbor a special fondness for the first heroes and heroines they encountered in their favorite childhood stories. Many of those heroes possess [End Page 18] some magical power; and when they place that power in the service of justice, especially the justice of revenge, their appeal is irresistible. I have seen grown men, armed and dressed for battle, avidly reading Superman comics. What stirred them, as it stirred many educated men and women in their childhood, was the spectacle of an omnipotent hero fighting to overcome the wrongs of this world.Even if our sentimental memory of these heroic figures is nothing more than nostalgia for irrecoverable pleasures, their initial impact may be seen as having a formative influence on a child's expectations, as many commentators have thought. In either case, they are all descended from a venerable tradition of literary figures. Superman himself is a direct descendant of Sherlock Holmes, who comes from a long line of English heroes going back to Robin Hood and Merlin, each of whom is involved in righting some injustice. Ultimately, all of them are descended from Odysseus, who reclaimed his rightful kingdom, after an absence of twenty years, by murdering his wife's suitors.Romance, like comedy, is a conflict between destructive and restorative impulses, and these impulses are embodied in the characters that inhabit this dream fiction.1 Like comic characters, the characters of romance evoke in us the same responses of wish and fear, and like comedy itself romance builds toward a catharsis of those two emotions. To achieve that catharsis, romance requires our "willing suspension of disbelief" (as Coleridge put it so memorably), which we have no difficulty in granting, provided only that the story is skillfully told. What we want from romance is the fulfillment of the wishes it arouses; what we get from their fulfillment is the pleasure of story-for-the-sake-of-story. It is this pleasure, in fact, that constitutes the basic, generic purpose of romance.The difference between the two genres, however, can be seen in the kinds of wish and fear they evoke in us, for unlike comedy the feelings of wish and fear evoked by romance are uncomplicated by ambivalence. We may wish to experience the destructive impulse vicariously through the protagonist, but only in order to see him triumph in the end. We are so entirely sympathetic to his enterprise that we cannot possibly wish for his destruction. If he is destroyed, as in the case of Tristan, the hero of the eponymous medieval romance, we are forced to recognize that the love potion he drank with Isolde was his... (shrink)

Pop and camp nostalgia for the lofty ziggurats, teardrop automobiles, sleek ships of the airstream, and even the alien BEMs with imperiled women in their clutches, are one thing; the cyberpunk critique of “wrongheadedness,” whether in Gibson’s elegant fiction or Sterling’s flip criticism, is another. Each provides us with a stylized way of approaching SF’s early formative years, years usually described as “uncritical” in their outlook on technological progress. But neither perspective can give us much sense of the sociohistorical landscape (...) of the thirties on which these gleaming technofantasies were raised. To have some idea of the historical power of what Gibson calls the “Gernsback Continuum,” we need to know more, for example, about the entrepreneurial activities and scientific convictions of Hugo Gernsback himself, a man often termed the “father” of science fiction because he presided over its market specialization as a cultural genre. In Gernsback’s view, SF was more of a social than a literary movement. We need to know more about the hallowed place of engineers and scientists in public consciousness in the years of boom and crisis between the wars, the consolidation of industrial research science at the heart of corporate capitalism, and the redemptive role cast for technology in the drama of national recovery and growth. We also need to know about the traditions of progressive thought that stood behind the often radical technocratic philosophy of progressive futurism in the thirties. My description of North American SF’s period of genre formation will show the crucial influence of the national cults of science, engineering, and invention as well as discuss the role of technocracy in the social thought of the day. I will also consider the ways in which pulp SF escaped or resisted the recruitist role allotted to it not only by shaping figures like Gernsback, who devoted himself directly to enlisting his readers in the cause of “science,” but also by subsequent critics of early SF, including those writers, like Gibson and Sterling, who have lamented its naïve celebration of technological innovation. Andrew Ross teaches English at Princeton University and is the author of The Failure of Modernism: Symptoms of American Poetry and No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture . He is also the editor of Universal Abandon?: The Politics of Postmodernism and the coeditor, with Constance Penley, of Technoculture. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Popular Culture in the Houses of Poe and CortázarDaniel Bautista (bio)"[…]at the age of nine I read Edgar Allan Poe for the first time. That book I stole to read because my mother didn't want me to read it, she thought I was too young and she was right. The book scared me and I was ill for three months, because I believed in it."…—Julio Cortázar1In interviews and essays, (...) Julio Cortázar, the famous Argentine author, often expressed a lifelong fascination with Edgar Allan Poe (Berg 227–32). Moreover, as a young man Cortázar spent two years translating the American author's prose into Spanish, making irresistible the search for traces of Poe in his own work. His description of Poe as a youthful and guilty pleasure reflects a common reaction to the American author that has led some critics to rue Poe's influence. Jonathan Elmer points out that "Poe's connection with juvenile tastes, and hence with a time when reading and acquiring 'culture' were actually enjoyable […] has been insistently and disapprovingly stressed by the Anglo-American literary-historical tradition" (3). Although Poe himself often liked to "advertise [his work] as ethereal and otherworldly, or avowedly timeless," critics who found elements of the vulgarly popular in his writing regarded the author as a true "stumbling block" in the American literary landscape (Rosenheim and Rachman xii; Eliot 205). In a similar vein, Elmer observes,It has puzzled many critics, sometimes to the point of vituperation, that Poe stands simultaneously as the germinal figure of a central modernist trajectory (leading via Baudelaire to French Symbolism and thence to the high modernism of Eliot and others) and as the much-acknowledged pioneer of several durable mass-cultural genres: detective fiction and science fiction, as well as certain modes of sensational or gothic horror, which are today, to use one of Poe's coinages, "omniprevalent."(2)In the past, such critics tended to dismiss Poe to the fringes of the American canon for what they saw as his highbrow pretensions and lowbrow taste. More recently, critics like Elmer and others have argued that Poe's ability to straddle the high/low cultural divide is precisely what makes him such a perennially fascinating writer and one of the most revealing about American culture in general.Considering Poe's high standing in Latin America, one might assume that the question of his low or popular status was not as much of a stumbling block there.2 Cortázar himself blamed American discomfort with Poe on his use of "baroque" language, an issue that Cortázar's own background as a native Spanish speaker allowed him to ignore: [End Page 1] "since I'm neither English nor American, I see it with another perspective. I know there are aspects which have aged a lot, that are exaggerated, but that hasn't the slightest importance next to his genius" (Weiss 73). The idea that an author's "genius" could rise above the demands of his countrymen was important to Cortázar. Questions about his own cultural status also significantly affected the reception of Cortázar's work, though in many ways he suffered from just the opposite charges made against Poe. The style and themes of his work, and the political context in Argentina during the early part of his career (characterized most conspicuously by the rise of Perónism), led some in the literary establishment of his own country to accuse Cortázar of being too European or elitist.3 Looking at Poe and Cortázar together, this essay compares how both authors negotiated such cultural issues in their writing and the way that Cortázar reworks some of Poe's particular strategies in a modern Argentine setting. Focusing on two of these authors' most well-known stories, "The Fall of the House of Usher" (published in 1839) and "Casa tomada" ("House Taken Over") (published in 1946), I argue that they both reflect some of the ways that Poe and Cortázar grappled with the rise and attraction of a popular culture that threatened to reconfigure their particular literary landscapes.In Keywords, Raymond Williams traces the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Gendered Geographies across Time IBeatriz Hermida Ramos and Miguel Sebastián-MartínEarly Researchers' Seminar for Science and Speculative Fiction, University of Salamanca, Spain, 03 06 2023The first Early Researchers' Seminar for Science and Speculative Fiction: Gendered Geographies across Time showcased the many and diverse approaches to speculative fiction (SF) currently being pursued within the University of Salamanca's English Department, which in a matter of years has become an (...) unexpected hotbed of aspiring SF scholars. A graduate student–led initiative organized by Paula Barba Guerrero (University of Salamanca), the seminar comprised six sessions that took place in spring 2023. The series opened with a keynote by Miriam Borham Puyal (University of Salamanca), followed by five more panels throughout the semester. Open to the public and organized in a hybrid format, the event positioned itself as a welcoming, non-commodified space for the exchange of ideas. To that end, the shared philosophy of the speakers was usually to deliver accessible talks, written not exclusively for established researchers and early career researchers (ECRs), but also catering to graduate and undergraduate populations. Questions ranged, therefore, from the most specialized to the most general—though questions such as "What is SF?" or "What is Utopia?" that might sound "basic" are not taken as such, and these led to the most intensive conversations among the diverse audience. [End Page 299]In the keynote lecture, titled "From Shelley to Braidotti: Posthuman Maternity in Netflix's I Am Mother," Borham Puyal traced a feminist genealogy of the streaming platform's latest speculative thriller by connecting it to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Puyal's talk occurred on International Women's Day and, in keeping with the overall seminar subtitle, "Gendered Geographies across Time," the speaker explored such topics as gendered corporealities, vulnerable bodies, and reproductive justice in a technological world. Through the lens of Rosi Braidotti's notion of posthumanism, Puyal investigated I Am Mother's (2019) alternative modes of maternity, belonging, and relationality; the speaker also reflected on the potential of speculative fiction and media to question and to imagine alternatives futures in response to our less-than-perfect present. Puyal's talk sparked a vibrant debate regarding precarity, surrogacy, and the fight for legal control over women and trans* people's bodies. Established professors, ECRs and undergraduate students alike debated the meanings of feminist speculation and posthumanism, particularly the nature of posthuman bodies. The audience responded enthusiastically to the nonhierarchical format of the discussion, which established the seminar—with five events yet to come—as a venue welcoming to everyone, regardless of their academic status or their familiarity with science and speculative fiction.The themes of posthuman perspectives and corporealities reappeared in "Beyond the Human: Posthuman and Ecocritical Perspectives," a panel taking place the following week. Lidia María Cuadrado Payeras (University of Salamanca), and Ana Tejero Marín (University of Salamanca) discussed a set of North American speculative novels that bring together the environmental humanities and posthumanist philosophy, transitioning from the topics of the opening keynote into those of the first thematic cluster. Cuadrado Payeras opened with a methodological discussion on genre and form, drawing from the works of both Braidotti and Margaret Atwood to argue for a queer approach to science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction, positioning these categories as porous rather than rigid and separate. Then, Cuadrado Payeras turned to contemporary Canadian authors to explore the nature/technology dyad and its relation to posthumanism. Moving the conversation toward the environmental humanities and the role of capitalism in the current climate crisis, Tejero Marín's talk addressed themes of worldbuilding, ecofeminism, and the Anthropocene in US-American science fiction. Afterward, she analyzed gendered conceptions of the earth and the nonhuman in N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy (2015–17), focusing on how the vengeful [End Page 300] Father Earth of Jemisin's work subverts traditional associations between femininity and nature. The first panel ended with a lively discussion, during which both speakers had the opportunity to discuss the necessity of understanding the environmental humanities and posthumanism in dialogue with one another, and the necessity of emphasizing the potential of contemporary stories to help us rethink our relationship... (shrink)

This is the first of three instalments which attempt to present a summary and critique of the life-work of William Burroughs Steele. Steele was an American business man who, subsequent to retiring after the First World War, spent his life working on a comprehensive study of mankind and its aspirations and follies, producing a gargantuan treatise called The Anatomy of Frustration-a treatise previously not published in its entirety. Here, Mr. Wells explains that he himself has decided to publish an account (...) of Steele's little-known treatise "in general terms and for the general public." Contents include: "Part I. What All Men Seek," "Part II. Toward the Next Beginning," and "Part III. Why We Are Frustrated." Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946) was a prolific English writer who wrote in a variety of genres, including the novel, politics, history, and social commentary. Today, he is perhaps best remembered for his contributions to the science fiction genre thanks to such novels as "The Time Machine" (1895), "The Invisible Man" (1897), and "The War of the Worlds" (1898). Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this book now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author. First published in "Harper's Magazine," April-June 1936. (shrink)

This symposium represents the first major foray of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry into what may well become one of its significant strands of scholarship. The JBI has always encouraged critical and marginal areas of bioethics scholarship and particularly those which make use of contemporary continental philosophy and cultural theory in addition to traditional analytic methods. For that reason this symposium is an expression of a “natural fit” or a “match made in heaven” (or at least the Platonic version of (...) that idea). The authors span times and sites in history and culture, from ancient Greece to present day Brisbane. They draw on a variety of literary genres and figures, ranging from Greek tragedy to an epic Chinese novel; from Jane Austen to William Styron, a major American novelist and essayist; from the modern English science fiction of Kazuo Ishiguro, a Japanese expatriate in London, to the 20th-century English poetry of Philip Larkin. The symposium also engages with some recur. (shrink)

Abe Kobo (1924-1993) was one of Japan's greatest postwar writers, widely recognized for his imaginative science fiction and plays of the absurd. However, he also wrote theoretical criticism for which he is lesser known, merging literary, historical, and philosophical perspectives into keen reflections on the nature of creativity, the evolution of the human species, and an impressive range of other subjects. Abe Kobo tackled contemporary social issues and literary theory with the depth and facility of a visionary thinker. Featuring (...) twelve essays from his prolific career--including "Poetry and Poets (Consciousness and the Unconscious)," written in 1944, and "The Frontier Within, Part II," written in 1969--this anthology introduces English-speaking readers to Abe Kobo as critic and intellectual for the first time. Demonstrating the importance of his theoretical work to a broader understanding of his fiction--and a richer portrait of Japan's postwar imagination--Richard F. Calichman provides an incisive introduction to Abe Kobo's achievements and situates his essays historically and intellectually. (shrink)

This book explores contemporary existential science fiction media and their influence on society's conceptions of humanity. These media texts manifest abstract concepts in a genre that has historically focused on exploring new ideas and frontiers, creating powerful media that helps audiences contemplate their existence as human beings.

Four instances of how science fiction contributes to the elucidation of novelty in the context of discovery are considered by extending existing discussions on temporal and use-novelty. In the first instance, science fiction takes an already well-known theory and produces its own re-interpretation; in the second instance, the scientific account is usually straightforward and whatever novelty that may occur would be more along the lines of how the science is deployed to extra-scientific matters; in the third instance, (...) science fiction takes an idea that appears impossible within the delimitations of reality and produces a universe where such a possibility becomes feasible; and in the fourth instance, science fiction extends from an idea already known at the time of the work’s production to simulate a possibility that could emerge should the extension be experimentally viable. However, the article will not end with a mere evaluation of these instances, but also proposes instances on how science fiction could contribute to new ways of experiencing, discerning, and working with scientific knowledge. (shrink)

This paper argues that narrative elements from the science fiction (SF) literary genre are used in the discourse of Nanoscience and Technology (NST) to bridge the gap between what is technically possible today and its inflated promises for the future. The argument is illustrated through a detailed discussion of two NST texts. The paper concludes by arguing that the use of SF narrative techniques poses serious problems to the development of a critical analysis of the ethical and social implications (...) of NST. (shrink)

Immortality is a subject which has long been explored and imagined by science fiction writers. In his intriguing new study, Stephen R.L.Clark argues that the genre of science fiction writing allows investigation of philosophical questions about immortality without the constraints of academic philosophy. He reveals how fantasy accounts of issues such as resurrection, disembodied survival, reincarnation and devices or drugs for preserving life can be used as an important resource for philosophical inquiry and examines how a society of (...) immortals might function through a reading of the vampire myth. _How to Live Forever_ is a compelling study which introduces students and professional philosophers to the possibilities of using science fiction in their work. It includes extensive suggestions for further reading, both fictional and philosophical, and examines the work of such major science fiction authors as _Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, Larry Niven, William Gibson_, and _Colin Wilson_. (shrink)

This paper addresses the gap between familiar popular narratives describing Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as the trope of the killer robot, and the realistic near-future implications of machine intelligence and automation for technology policy and society. The authors conducted a series of interviews with technologists, science fiction writers, and other experts, as well as a workshop, to identify a set of key themes relevant to the near future of AI. In parallel, they led the analysis of almost 100 recent (...) works of science fiction stories with AI themes to develop a preliminary taxonomy of AI in science fiction. These activities informed the commissioning of six original works of science fiction and non-fiction response essays on the themes of “intelligence” and “justice” that were published as part of the Slate Future Tense Fiction series in 2019 and 2020. Our findings indicate that artificial intelligence remains deeply ambiguous both in the policy and cultural contexts: we struggle to define the boundaries and the agency of machine intelligence, and consequently find it difficult to govern or interact with such systems. However, our findings also suggest more productive avenues of inquiry and framing that could foster both better policy and better narratives around AI. (shrink)

Over the last two decades, many philosophers have been increasingly inclined to consider science fiction films as philosophical exercises that center on the nature of human consciousness and existence. Albert Camus' philosophy of the absurd, however, has almost never been employed as a constructive perspective that can illumine unexplored aspects of these films. This is surprising, since science fiction films seem to be packed with visions and dialogues that echo the Sisyphean universe. Cosmos and Camus endeavors to set (...) foot on this uncharted terrain. Its first part aims to introduce the main components of Camus' absurdity in such a way that it can be easily applied to the analysis of the films later. Equipped with these Camusean essentials, it delves into an in-depth analysis of two first-encounter films (Contact and Arrival) and two AI films (A.I. and Her). These analyses yield more than an insightful reflection of the absurd contents in science-fiction film. Indeed, imaginative collisions with nonhumans seem to tell us a lot about the nature of the absurd in the human condition, as well as raising the question of whether absurdity is exclusively a human matter. Ultimately, the interpretation of the films illuminates the films themselves just as much as it illuminates, challenges, and expands Camus' concept of absurdity, thus contributing to our current understanding of what the absurd reality is and how we can either live with it or transcend it. (shrink)

Science fiction has often been at the forefront of popular renderings and exploration of various “subaltern” groups, including that of nonhuman animals. I argue that science fiction’s freedom from the boundaries of what is currently possible allows writers such as Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, Philip K. Dick, Olaf Stapledon, Daniel Keyes, Octavia Butler, Cordwainer Smith, and H. Beam Piper to explore ethical possibilities regarding animals that are diverse from those of the context in which they wrote. It (...) is also notable that the earlier science fiction writers only critique majority views regarding animals, whereas their antecessors go so far as to suggest the empowerment of the “Other,” in this case, nonhuman animals. (shrink)

A timely volume that uses science fiction as a springboard to meaningful philosophical discussions, especially at points of contact between science fiction and new scientific developments. Raises questions and examines timely themes concerning the nature of the mind, time travel, artificial intelligence, neural enhancement, free will, the nature of persons, transhumanism, virtual reality, and neuroethics Draws on a broad range of books, films and television series, including _The Matrix, Star Trek, Blade Runner, Frankenstein, Brave New World, The Time (...) Machine,_ and _Back to the Future_ Considers the classic philosophical puzzles that appeal to the general reader, while also exploring new topics of interest to the more seasoned academic. (shrink)

Abe Kobo was one of Japan's greatest postwar writers, widely recognized for his imaginative science fiction and plays of the absurd. However, he also wrote theoretical criticism for which he is lesser known, merging literary, historical, and philosophical perspectives into keen reflections on the nature of creativity, the evolution of the human species, and an impressive range of other subjects. Abe Kobo tackled contemporary social issues and literary theory with the depth and facility of a visionary thinker. Featuring twelve (...) essays from his prolific career -- including "Poetry and Poets," written in 1944, and "The Frontier Within, Part II," written in 1969 -- this anthology introduces English-speaking readers to Abe Kobo as critic and intellectual for the first time. Demonstrating the importance of his theoretical work to a broader understanding of his fiction -- and a richer portrait of Japan's postwar imagination -- Richard F. Calichman provides an incisive introduction to Abe Kobo's achievements and situates his essays historically and intellectually. (shrink)

Science fiction is often used as a tool with which to think about actual science. While often this is depicted in terms of imaginary future potential, science fiction has also shown itself to be a poignant critique of existing science and a means of exploring our collective anxieties regarding the continued logic of current scientific development. This article explores the science fiction of organ transplantation, as mapped against scientific and medicolegal developments in actual organ transplantation. (...) Explored through the lens of Adorno’s work on cultural criticism, it is argued that science fiction serves as a tool with which we address (and critique) the ethical boundaries (and fears, often colonial in nature) of actual organ transplantation. Science fiction works such as Larry Niven’s Known Space Universe and Repo! The Genetic Opera are examined, demonstrating that in critiquing the science of organ transplantation, fictionists ultimately come to examine changing cultural understandings of selfhood and embodiment. (shrink)

In an earlier study, De la féerie à la science-fiction, I tried to show the internal consistency and the chronological succession of fairy tales, fantastic stories and works of scientific anticipation or extrapolation. They represent three styles of the imaginary, and illustrate, each in its own way (“like hollow molds,” I said), the chief epochs of man's changing situation on his planet, as he himself saw it, more or less naively, in each case. First he depicted himself as powerless (...) and wonderstruck; then confident in science and technology, he considered himself the fortunate conqueror of the planet; and finally he saw himself as isolated and marginal in the immensity of space—just at the very time when he was learning to move about in it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw by Hua LiShaoming DuanHua Li. Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021. 248 pp., hardcover, $68.00. ISBN 9781487508234.Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw focuses on the years after Mao Zedong's demise, from 1976 to 1983, during which China's politics and culture underwent unusual changes. Li's book is a (...) laudable scholarly endeavor that provides readers with a new interpretation of science fiction (SF) during the post-Mao era. Li connects the production of Chinese SF to a wider context, including mainstream literary perspectives, domestic political demands and predicaments, changing international relations, and Western SF traditions. From my point of view, this book contributes to existing scholarship in four different ways.First, Li offers an explanation for the launching of the "Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign" in 1983, and for the withering of SF in the 1980s, that is different from that of many other scholars. According to Zhan Ling, Chinese [End Page 270] officials liked art that closely connected to politics in the 1980s.1 Yet SF writers were very interested in thriller themes during this period, pursuing literary value while neglecting political significance. Science fiction deviated from reality, which went against Deng Xiaoping's idea of "seeking truth from facts," proposed in 1978. For these reasons, Zhan argues, SF was labeled as "bourgeois literature" in the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign and severely criticized.2 Wu Yan offers another explanation, focusing on how, in 1983, renowned scientist Qian Xuesen published an article in People's Daily that accuses then-current SF of being "specimens of pseudoscience" and misleading teenagers.3 Qian's viewpoint caught Deng's attention; he claimed in the same year that SF was a pollution of science.4 Moreover, a growing number of books and films promoted sexual liberation and Western democracy at this time. Faced with this "crisis," Deng called on all levels of judicial and propaganda departments to thwart the spread of these ideas and works in society. This campaign lasted for three years, with approximately twenty-four thousand people being executed for "mental impurity." It dealt a heavy blow to SF as well, causing the number of SF writers as well as the social impact of SF to decline significantly.5Compared to Zhan and Wu, Li places more emphasis on the fact that Deng wanted to achieve political and ideological unity through this campaign. In the 1980s, many voices were opposing Deng at the top of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Although Deng was not the highest leader of the CPC in name, he controlled the standing of the CPC. Many high-level officials accused Deng of destroying socialist democracy. Deng launched the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign under the pretext of fighting the spread of "Western-inspired liberal ideas among the Chinese Populace" (14), while aiming to purge high-level dissidents from the CPC. This campaign, like Mao's Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and 1970s, became increasingly violent and difficult to control as it went on. Many officials in the CPC took advantage of the campaign to attack people, policies, and behavior that they disliked (15). Li's account is very convincing because it aligns with the political changes that have occurred since then. Hu Yaobang was dismissed in January 1987 due to "indulging bourgeois liberalization and weakening the Party's leadership."6 As the general secretary of the Central Committee of the CPC, Hu admired the Western political system with its separation of powers and intended to establish such a system in China to achieve democratic modernization. However, his efforts were obstructed by Deng. The establishment of a modern democratic system would have signified the end of the CPC dictatorship. [End Page 271]Further, Li points out that SF in the post-Mao era lacked a critical awareness of ethical problems. SF writers of this era tended to ignore the moral and ethical implications of the use of modern technology, or they took up modern technology without the reflectiveness and attention to detail that makes modern technology something more than a normative... (shrink)

In this highly original book, Russell Blackford discusses the intersection of science fiction and humanity’s moral imagination. With the rise of science and technology in the 19th century, and our continually improving understanding of the cosmos, writers and thinkers soon began to imagine futures greatly different from the present. Science fiction was born out of the realization that future technoscientific advances could dramatically change the world. Along with the developments described in modern science fiction - space (...) societies, conscious machines, and upgraded human bodies, to name but a few - come a new set of ethical challenges and new forms of ethics. Blackford identifies these issues and their reflection in science fiction. His fascinating book will appeal to anyone with an interest in philosophy or science fiction, or in how they interact. (shrink)

Novels in general use three different modes of reporting: narration, dialogue and description. Understanding that even with a given mode, such as the description of a stone, the relation between the diachronic flow of language and the synchronic focus of attention can be manipulated, we can still note that in general narration reports occurrences in a reading time considerably less than actual time. , dialogue reports occurrence in a reading time roughly congruent with actual time , and description reports occurrences (...) in a reading time considerably greater than actual time . Thus, in the interweaving of narration, dialogue and description a narrative not only defamiliarizes what it reports but guides the reader's consciousness through rhythms of correspondence between reading time and actual time. As long as we do not stay entirely in one mode—and we never do—these rhythms adjust the movement of our consciousness so that unconsciously at least we more or less approach synchronicity, depending on the particular techniques—but we never achieve it. Spatial form may be thought of as a tendency, but in ordinary language it is never achieved. Eric S. Rabkin is professor of English at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The author of Narrative Suspense, The Fantastic in Literature, and many articles on science fiction, he is also the coauthor of Form in Fiction and Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision. He contributed "Metalinguistics and Science Fiction" to the Autumn 1979 issue of Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

This book explores what science fiction can tell us about the human condition in a technological world, with the ethical dilemmas and consequences that this entails. This book is the result of the joint efforts of scholars and scientists from various disciplines. This interdisciplinary approach sets an example for those who, like us, have been busy assessing the ways in which fictional attempts to fathom the possibilities of science and technology speak to central concerns about what it means (...) to be human in a contemporary world of technology and which ethical dilemmas it brings along. One of the aims of this book is to demonstrate what can be achieved in approaching science fiction as a kind of imaginary laboratory for experimentation, where visions of human (or even post-human) life under various scientific, technological or natural conditions that differ from our own situation can be thought through and commented upon. Although a scholarly work, this book is also designed to be accessible to a general audience that has an interest in science fiction, as well as to a broader academic audience interested in ethical questions. (shrink)

The notion of utopia in Quebec culture has been a formal and thematic constant since the origins of its literature and indeed French Canadian history. From the discovery and cartography of the so-called New World, as documented in the early colonial travel writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to twenty-first-century science fiction, both reactionary and revolutionary texts have pervaded the ideological landscape of Quebec, markedly inspired by political and religious struggles.1 The texts that constitute this diverse science-fictional (...) body of work often create a hybrid genre through a simultaneously utopian and uchronian—or alternate historical—approach. While appearing on the surface to be limited... (shrink)

Identification with all humanity is viewed as a critical construct that facilitates global solidarity. However, its origins have rarely been explored in previous literature, and no study has yet investigated the role of pop-culture in cultivating IWAH. To address this gap, this study initially focuses on science fiction, a specific pop-culture genre with worldwide audiences, and examines its effect on IWAH. It hypothesized a direct association between sci-fi engagement and IWAH from the narrative persuasion approach, and an indirect association (...) via abstract construal based on the cognitive-literary approach. Moreover, the moderating role of actively open-minded thinking in the direct and indirect association was also assessed. Results were obtained through a cross-sectional survey conducted in China and showed that sci-fi engagement was positively associated with IWAH; this association was also partially mediated by abstract construal. Interestingly, and inconsistent with our hypotheses, AOT positively moderated the indirect effect but negatively moderated the direct effect. Theoretical and practical implications for cultivating IWAH from the media and pop-cultural perspective were discussed. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Science Fiction: Henri Bergson and the Fabulations of Philip K. Dick explores the deep affinity between two seemingly quite different thinkers, in their attempts to address the need for salvation in (and from) an era of accelerated mechanization, in which humans' capacity for destroying or subjugating the living has attained a planetary scale. The philosopher and the science fiction writer come together to meet the contradictory imperatives of a realist outlook-a task which, arguably, philosophy and (...) science fiction could only ever adequately undertake in collaboration. Their respective approaches meet in a focus on the ambiguous status of fictionalizing, or fabulation, as simultaneously one of mechanization's most devastating tools, and the possibility of its undoing. When they are read together, the complexities and paradoxes thrown up by this ambiguity, with which both Bergson and Dick struggle on their own, open up new ways to navigate ideas of mechanism and mysticism, immanence and transcendence, and the possibility and meaning of salvation. The result is at once an original reading of both thinkers, a new critical theory of the socio–cultural, political and ethical function of fictionalizing, and a case study in the strange affinity, at times the uncanny similarity, between philosophy and science fiction. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the difficulty of distinguishing between science fiction and philosophy. The boundary between these genres is somewhat vague. There is a “neutral zone” separating the genres. But this neutral zone is often transgressed. One key distinction considered here is that between entertainment and edification. Another crucial element is found in the importance of the author’s apparent self-consciousness of these distinctions. Philosophy seeks to edify, and philosophers are often deliberately focused on thinking about the question of (...) the borders that distinguish genres. Science fiction is more interested in entertainment, and narrative authors tend to care less about policing the border. This distinction is a pragmatic one. And canonical authors often violate the boundary. I examine key authors to make this point, including Plato, Kant, and H.G. Wells. My discussion shows that these canonical authors wandered into the neutral zone in their own work, reminding us that the boundaries we draw around genres are arbitrary and subject to transgression. (shrink)

The Fifth Element (1997) is a French science-fiction film in English, directed and co-written by Luc Besson. The title and the plot of the film refer to a central notion of Greek philosophy, that is, pemptousia, or quintessence. Pre-Socratic philosophers such as Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes and others, were convinced that all natural beings – in fact, nature itself – consist in four primary imperishable elements or essences (ousiai), i.e., fire, earth, water, and air. To these four, Aristotle added (...) aether, a fifth essence (pemptousia). The introduction of aether gave birth to a great tradition in late Antique and Medieval philosophy, and eventually it came to signify not an additional primary element, but the core-essence of all beings, their fundamental ontological structure. Besson’s film draws its inspiration on this philosophical tradition but its cinematographic rendering of the concept of Quintessence is typical of the contemporaneous views on the core characteristics of matters. The modernity that stimulates the film is equally anti-transcendentalist and anti-essentialist. Thus, the fifth element of the film is existentially personified and genderized making the traditional philosophical significance of the term to be adjusted by modernity in an immanent and temporal context where in addition aesthetics plays a crucial role. (shrink)