Classical Traditions in Science Fiction
For all its concern with change in the present and future, science fiction is deeply rooted in the past and, surprisingly, engages especially deeply with the ancient world. Indeed, both as an area in which the meaning of "classics" is actively transformed and as an open-ended set of texts whose own 'classic' status is a matter of ongoing debate, science fiction reveals much about the roles played by ancient classics in modern times. Classical Traditions in Science Fiction is the first collection in English dedicated to the study of science fiction as a site of classical receptions, offering a much-needed mapping of that important cultural and intellectual terrain.

This volume discusses a wide variety of representative examples from both classical antiquity and the past four hundred years of science fiction, beginning with science fiction's "rosy-fingered dawn" and moving toward the other-worldly literature of the present day. As it makes its way through the eras of science fiction, Classical Traditions in Science Fiction exposes the many levels on which science fiction engages the ideas of the ancient world, from minute matters of language and structure to the larger thematic and philosophical concerns.
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Classical Traditions in Science Fiction
For all its concern with change in the present and future, science fiction is deeply rooted in the past and, surprisingly, engages especially deeply with the ancient world. Indeed, both as an area in which the meaning of "classics" is actively transformed and as an open-ended set of texts whose own 'classic' status is a matter of ongoing debate, science fiction reveals much about the roles played by ancient classics in modern times. Classical Traditions in Science Fiction is the first collection in English dedicated to the study of science fiction as a site of classical receptions, offering a much-needed mapping of that important cultural and intellectual terrain.

This volume discusses a wide variety of representative examples from both classical antiquity and the past four hundred years of science fiction, beginning with science fiction's "rosy-fingered dawn" and moving toward the other-worldly literature of the present day. As it makes its way through the eras of science fiction, Classical Traditions in Science Fiction exposes the many levels on which science fiction engages the ideas of the ancient world, from minute matters of language and structure to the larger thematic and philosophical concerns.
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Classical Traditions in Science Fiction

Classical Traditions in Science Fiction

Classical Traditions in Science Fiction

Classical Traditions in Science Fiction

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Overview

For all its concern with change in the present and future, science fiction is deeply rooted in the past and, surprisingly, engages especially deeply with the ancient world. Indeed, both as an area in which the meaning of "classics" is actively transformed and as an open-ended set of texts whose own 'classic' status is a matter of ongoing debate, science fiction reveals much about the roles played by ancient classics in modern times. Classical Traditions in Science Fiction is the first collection in English dedicated to the study of science fiction as a site of classical receptions, offering a much-needed mapping of that important cultural and intellectual terrain.

This volume discusses a wide variety of representative examples from both classical antiquity and the past four hundred years of science fiction, beginning with science fiction's "rosy-fingered dawn" and moving toward the other-worldly literature of the present day. As it makes its way through the eras of science fiction, Classical Traditions in Science Fiction exposes the many levels on which science fiction engages the ideas of the ancient world, from minute matters of language and structure to the larger thematic and philosophical concerns.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780190228330
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 02/09/2015
Series: Classical Presences
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 400
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 2.70(d)

About the Author

Brett M. Rogers is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Puget Sound.

Benjamin Eldon Stevens is Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at Hollins University.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction: The True History of The Future (and Its Future)
Brett M. Rogers
Benjamin Eldon Stevens

Part I: SF's Rosy-Fingered Dawn

1. The Lunar Setting of Johannes Kepler's Somnium, Science Fiction's Missing Link
Dean Swinford

2. Lucretius, Lucan, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Jesse Weiner

3. Virgil in Jules Verne's Journey to The Center of The Earth
Benjamin Eldon Stevens

4. Mr. Lucian in Suburbia: Links between The True History and The First Men in The Moon
Antony Keen

Part II: SF 'Classics'

5. A Complex Oedipus: The Tragedy of Edward Morbius
Gregory S. Bucher

6. Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz, The Great Year, and The Ages of Man
Erik Grayson

7. Time and Self-Referentiality in The Iliad and Frank Herbert's Dune
Joel Christensen

8. Disability as Rhetorical Trope in Classical Myth and Blade Runner
Rebecca Raphael

Part III: Classics in Space

9. Moral and Mortal in Star Trek: The Original Series
George Kovacs

10. Hybrids and Homecomings in The Odyssey and Alien Resurrection
Brett M. Rogers

11. Classical Antiquity and Western Identity in Battlestar Galactica
Vincent Tomasso

Part IV: Ancient Classics for a Future Generation?

12. Revised Iliadic Epiphanies in Dan Simmons' Ilium
Gaël Grobéty

13. Refiguring the Roman Empire in The Hunger Games Trilogy
Marian Makins

14. Jonathan Hickman's Pax Romana and The End of Antiquity
C. W. Marshall

Appendix
Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing
Robert W. Cape, Jr.

Works Cited
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