The Influence of Imagination: Essays on Science Fiction and Fantasy as Agents of Social Change

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This collection of essays examines the potential connections between speculative fiction and actual social change. Through a variety of approaches, the contributors explore whether consumers of science fiction and fantasy narratives can experience a real shift in their worldviews as a result of that consumption. Topics include the utopian vision of California in Ursula K. LeGuin's Always Coming Home, the changing role of women in science fiction pulp magazines, and the representation of progress and social change...
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More About This Book

Overview

This collection of essays examines the potential connections between speculative fiction and actual social change. Through a variety of approaches, the contributors explore whether consumers of science fiction and fantasy narratives can experience a real shift in their worldviews as a result of that consumption. Topics include the utopian vision of California in Ursula K. LeGuin's Always Coming Home, the changing role of women in science fiction pulp magazines, and the representation of progress and social change in popular graphic novels.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780786432301
  • Publisher: McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
  • Publication date: 12/28/2007
  • Pages: 236
  • Product dimensions: 6.39 (w) x 9.03 (h) x 0.52 (d)

Meet the Author

Lee Easton is an English professor at Mount Royal College in Alberta, Canada. Randy Schroeder, an active writer of fantasy and speculative poetry, is an English professor at Mount Royal College.
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     v
Preface: From Future Visions to Critical Singularities     1
Introduction: Polarities at the Singularity   Randy Schroeder     5
The Continuum of Meaning: A Reflection on Speculative Fiction and Society   Marie Jakober     27
Peter Jackson and the Deforestation of Middle Earth   David Hyttenrauch     32
Seeking Stories: Possible Worlds Semantics in Greer Ilene Gilman's Moonwise   Christine Mains     44
"Dancing on the Edge of the World": California and Utopia in Ursula K. Le Guin's Always Coming Home   Ken Simpson     55
Passing Genes in GATTACA, or, Straight Genes for the Queer Guy   Lee Easton     70
The Changing Role of Women in Science Fiction: Weird Tales, 1925-1940   Mary Hemmings     83
Storytelling and Folktales: A Graphic Exploration   Gail de Vos     92
The Graphic Novel as New Testament: On Narrative Progress, Cultural Change and the Heroic Story   Richard Harrison     99
Science Fiction, Religion, and Social Change   Steven Engler     108
Science and Science Fiction   Todd C. Nickle     118
Olaf Stapledon's Americanized Planet   Robert Boschman     125
Nalo Hopkinson's Colonial and Dystopic Worldsin Midnight Robber   Ruby S. Ramraj     131
"Wartime Inventions with Peaceful Intentions": Television and the Media Cyborg in C.L. Moore's No Woman Born   Linda Howell     139
The Fantasy of Gender/Sex: Angela Carter and Mythmaking   Darlene M. Juschka     160
In the Spirit of Process: A Braiding Together of New Utopianism, Gilles Deleuze, and Anne Carson   Jacqueline Plante     174
Dystopia in a New Land   Karyn Huenemann     183
Surfing the Singularity: Science Fiction and the Future of Narrative Media   Brian Greenspan     202
About the Contributors     221
Index     225
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