Intersections: reading science fiction and critical thought
James Holden
2134/7893
https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/thesis/Intersections_reading_science_fiction_and_critical_thought/9326795
For some, science fiction is simply a throwaway genre with little artistic or
intellectual merit. It is certainly the case that much of the literary establishment has
traditionally ignored the genre. At the same time, some science-fiction authors have
sought to distance themselves from the academy and the supposed legitimation that it
offers. In this thesis I oppose these necessarily reductive positions by highlighting
some of the ways in which science fiction intersects with critical thought.
I focus on two points of intersection in turn. Firstly, I consider the frequent
references to `precariousness' in the work of science-fiction author and academic
Adam Roberts. I argue that such references can be read in terms of a wider discussion
on the nature of `following'. With this larger philosophical framework in mind I
demonstrate in some detail how Roberts' work intersects with the writing of both
Jacques Derrida and Karl Marx. I then show how the notion of `precariousness' also
seems to underpin science fiction's depiction of the technological singularity.
In the second half of this thesis I call attention to the fact that science fiction
frequently depicts selves that are, in a manner of speaking, separated from
themselves, which is to say selves that are disjointed. More specifically, I demonstrate
how, in a number of science-fiction texts, the mirror and the archive operate as sites
of psychical disjointedness. In doing so, I show how the genre intersects with a wide
variety of critical texts, including those by both Sigmund Freud and his great acolyte
Jacques Lacan, Charles Darwin and those working in the field of archive
management. I then suggest that in many science-fiction texts the ocean seems to
provide an alternative to this self-disjointedness; it appears to offer the experience of a
kind of 'oneness' that is reminiscent both of Freud's account of 'the oceanic' in Civilization and its Discontents (1930) and Darwin's descriptions of Man's oceanic
origins; it also recalls many Judaeo-Christian texts.
In conclusion, I read Samuel R. Delany's The Einstein Intersection (1967)
alongside several theoretical texts. During the course of this reading I question
whether, having found a `way in' to the intersections between science fiction and
critical thought, we can ever find a way out again. I ask: is it desirable or even
possible to disentangle science fiction from critical thought?
Throughout this study I draw extensively upon the interviews that I have
conducted with Adam Roberts, Alastair Reynolds and Ken MacLeod. The complete
transcripts of these interviews are included as an appendix.
2011-02-01 12:01:41
untagged
Studies in the Creative Arts and Writing not elsewhere classified