Social science fiction.
详细信息
- 作者：Leslie ; Christopher S.
- 学历：Doctor
- 年：2007
- 导师：Dolan, Marc J.
- 毕业院校：City University of New York
- 专业：American Studies.;Literature, American.;Mass Communications.
- ISBN：9780549257905
- CBH：3283184
- Country：USA
- 语种：English
- FileSize：1593033
- Pages：342
文摘
Through a cultural history of social science fiction, I consider one of the permutations of the "golden age" of science fiction, social science fiction. It is born in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and becomes increasingly prominent in the aftermath of World War 2 as a literature that can excite a moral response in engineers and scientists and help individuals adapt to change. Social science fiction uses mass media to encourage a public-sphere debate about the interaction of technology and society.;One implication of this study is a rethinking the phrase "cultural resistance"; often tied to Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony, cultural resistance in this study is the demonstrated to provide actionable freedom for those who participate in social science fiction. While social science fiction is thus an important counterhegemonic formation, for the past forty years this important literature been thought of as too enthusiastically supporting a technocratic society. However, the scientists and cultural workers who create social science fiction step away from their employment to exercise the possibilities of a shared literary space, demonstrating the possibility that mass media can provide a space for cultural resistance.;This project considers the work of John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, and Robert A. Heinlein to show how their activities promote a new collectivity aligned against master narratives. Originally successful, social science fiction is disparaged in favor of the new wave because in its critique social science fiction appropriates certain fantasies of technocratic discourse. The Star Trek television series (live action and animated) and Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey both interrogate the solid subject positions of earlier practitioners. Unfortunately, the critique of social science fiction made during the new wave makes a lasting impression on the critical imagination, leaving an important exemplar of cultural resistance to go unstudied. Using a cultural studies approach inspired by Michael Denning, this study demonstrates how the authors in this study predict the contingent communities that embrace new media at the end of the century and offers an antecedent to help direct media projects in the future.