C. S. Lewis: A Very Short Introduction

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Como
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Christian Belief ◽  
World War ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Chronicles Of Narnia ◽  
Lewis A

Beloved by children and adults worldwide, the writings of C. S. Lewis have a broad and enduring appeal. Although best known for the iconic Chronicles of Narnia series, C. S. Lewis was a man of many literary parts. Already well known as a scholar in the 1930s, he became a famous broadcaster during World War II and wrote in many genres: satire (The Screwtape Letters), science fiction (Perelandra), novels, poetry, and books on Christian belief. C. S. Lewis: A Very Short Introduction delves into the vast corpus of his work, discussing its core themes and lasting appeal. Moving chronologically through Lewis’s life, it provides a picture of the whole man, his work, and his enduring legacy.

scholarly journals Towards a Poetics of Strangeness: Experiments in Classifying Language of Technological Novelty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Simeone ◽  
Advaith Gundavajhala Venkata Koundinya ◽  
Anandh Ravi Kumar ◽  
Ed Finn
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Margaret Atwood ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
William Gibson ◽  
World War ◽  
The Future ◽  
Bruce Sterling

The trajectory of science fiction since World War II has been defined by its relationship with technoscientific imaginaries. In the Golden Age of the 1930s and 1940s, writers like Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein dreamed of the robots and rocket ships that would preoccupy thousands of engineers a few decades later. In 1980s cyberpunk, Vernor Vinge, William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling imagined virtual worlds that informed generations of technology entrepreneurs. When Margaret Atwood was asked what draws her to dystopian visions of the future, she responded, "I read the newspaper." This is not just a reiteration of the truism that science fiction is always about the present as well as the future. In fact, we will argue, science fiction is a genre defined by its special relationship with what we might term "scientific reality," or the set of paradigms, aspirations, and discourses associated with technoscientific research.

“Evidences of Decadent Humanity”: Antianthropocentrism in Early Science Fiction

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan L. Moore
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Aldo Leopold ◽  
World War ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Land Community

Early science fiction (SF) is noted for, among other things, its conservatism and lack of interest in ecology. Brian Stableford, a well-known SF writer and critic, writes that "there are very few early stories with ecological themes" (1993, 395). This article shows that, in fact, many early SF works (those written between the Enlightenment and World War II) employ ecological themes, especially as applied to questioning our anthropocentrism. These works suggest that humans are but one species among many, that we are not the end of nature/history, that the natural world may be better off without us, and, in some cases, that humanity is fated to go extinct, the result of its own hubris. Such views are undoubtedly pessimistic, yet these works may also be read as warnings for humans to seek a more humble view of ourselves as members of what Aldo Leopold calls the land community.

“Propaganda Must Be Painless”: Radio Entertainment and Government Propaganda During World War II

Prospects ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 373-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerd Horten
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Radio Structure ◽  
The Future ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Government Propaganda ◽  
Radio Industry ◽  
Lewis A

For a jittery radio industry concerned about the future of American broadcasting in the early months after America's entry into World War II, William B. Lewis came as a godsend. As head of the Domestic Radio Division of the Office of Facts and Figures (OFF), and later the Office of War Information (OWI, June 1942), Lewis, a former vicepresident of CBS, reassured the industry that the commercial structure of American radio would remain unchanged. In his first meeting with network executives and radio sponsors and advertisers in January 1942, he outlined his pragmatic approach to radio's war effort. As he argued, “radio is valuable only because of the enormous audiences it has created.” During wartime, his government office planned to use radio's popularity without unnecessarily disrupting radio structure and schedule: “Let's not forget that radio is primarily an entertainment medium, and must continue to be if it is … to deliver the large audiences we want to reach.”

A Bright New Future, With Monsters

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Hantke
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Korean War ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
World War ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Cold War

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's key themes. This book focuses on American science fiction films of the 1950s, many of which are fondly remembered, yet critically dismissed. It argues that it is through the intersection of past and present, of unresolved trauma superimposed upon present anxieties, that 1950s science fiction films acquire topical relevance within their historical context. Science fiction films from the 1950s are a belated response to the national trauma of World War II and the Korean War projected onto the unsettling experience of the Cold War. With much of the critical work on the Cold War aspects of the films already delivered by other scholars, this book will weigh in on the side of the argument that has, as yet, remained critically neglected—the side of past trauma: on World War II and the Korean War, and their troubling legacy in the first decade of the American Century.

Die politische Ethik Paul Tillichs

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnulf von Scheliha
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Political Ethics ◽  
World War ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Mutual Dependency ◽  
Special Respect

AbstractThe following essay reconstructs Tillich’s political ethics during the period of Weimar until the end of World War II (1919-1945). After a short introduction into his early understanding of theological ethics and normativity selected publications and statements are discussed with special respect to the topics Democracy, Religious Socialism and human rights. Thus Tillich’s theological reason in combination with his view on contemporary political questions indicates a development in mutual dependency. It also shows his theological basis as the main protection against ideological thinking especially in regard to the thoughts and consequences within German National Socialism.

scholarly journals Emigration in Estonian Literature: “Self” and “Other” in the Context of European Literature

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 341
Author(s):  
Anneli Mihkelev
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
World War ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Common People ◽  
Political Terror ◽  
National Ideology

The experience of emigration generated a new paradigm in Estonian culture and literature. After World War II Sweden became a new homeland for many people. Estonian culture and literature suddenly became divided into two parts. The political terror imposed restrictions on literature in homeland and the national ideology limited literature in the initial years of exile. Both were closed communities and were monolingual systems in a cultural sense because these systems avoided dialogue and the influence of other signs. It was a traumatic experience for nation and culture where the totalitarian political power and trauma have allied. The normal cultural communication was destroyed. But the most important thing at this time was memory, not just memory but entangled memory, which emigrants carried with them to the new homeland and which influenced people in Estonia. The act of remembering becomes crucial in the exile cultures.Estonian literature in exile and in the homeland presents the fundamental images of opening or closing, escaping or staying, and of flight or fight. Surrealism as well as fantasy and science fiction as the literary styles reveal what is hidden in the unconscious of a poet or a person or even in the collective memory of a nation. Surrealism has played a certain role in our literature, but it has been different from French surrealism, it is a uniquely Estonian surrealism. At the same time Estonia was already a new homeland for many refugees from Russia who had escaped during the Revolution of 1917 and World War I. August Gailit and Oskar Luts wrote about that issue in different literary works. Luts entangled different memories in his novel Tagahoovis (In the Backyard, 1933): the memories of Estonians and the memories of Russian emigrants. He also entangled historical narratives about World War I, the Russian revolution and the young Estonian state in the 1920s. Luts wrote about common people who interpret historical narratives. The novel was also published in exile in 1969 in Toronto.

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