‘Almost the same, but not quite’: Ontological politics of recognition in modern science fiction

This article explores how issues of ‘not quite human-ness’ expose the conditions of possibility of being considered human; of human ontology. I refer to these dynamics for identifying sameness and difference as ontological politics of recognition. Tracing the genealogies of passing, I situate passing and Othering socio-political regulation and ideological frameworks for conceptualising ontology. I am particularly concerned with how the notion of ontology is bound up in questions of race and gender, and with the entanglements of technology and biology that can destabilise apparently fixed boundaries between the (natural/normative) human and its (constructed/abnormal) Others. I identify three trajectories of passing as human in the histories of science fiction. The first trajectory discusses ontological mimicry: the ways in which the non-human attempts to be like the human. The second trajectory addresses how passing as human relies on a Butlerian performativity: doing human-ness by complying with the regulatory frames for appearances and practices. The final trajectory discusses what is at stake in contemporary ontological politics of recognition: a renegotiation of human supremacy through an emphasis on collectivity and collaboration rather that singularity and boundedness.

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Cold War Space and Culture in the 1960s and 1980s

10.1093/oso/9780192846167.001.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

David L. Pike

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Cold War ◽

Science Fiction ◽

Nuclear Family ◽

Nuclear War ◽

Protest Movements ◽

Race And Gender ◽

The Government ◽

And Gender ◽

The 1960S

Cold War Space and Culture in the 1960s and 1980s: The Bunkered Decades studies the two periods in which Americans were actively encouraged to build backyard shelters while governments exhausted their budgets on fortified super-shelters and megaton bombs. The dreams and nightmares inspired by the specter of nuclear destruction were expressed in images and forms of fallout shelters and other bunker fantasies from comics, movies, and pulp paperbacks to policy documents, protest movements, and survivalist tracts. Bunker fantasies stratified class, region, race, and gender and created often unrecognized through-lines leading from the 1960s and the less-studied 1980s into the present day. A substantial Introduction defines “bunker fantasy” and the meanings of shelter and security since the end of World War II. The five chapters of Part 1 taxonomize the primary and sometimes overlapping forms taken by the bunker and its fantasies during its first heyday in the years around the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962: the basement or backyard shelter, suburbia, and the nuclear family; the cave, tribalism, and feral humanity; the private supershelter, survivalism, and self-reliance; the community shelter, infrastructure, and urban bunkerism; and the government supershelter, paranoia, and paternalism. The four chapters of Part 2 treat the new bunker fantasies that emerged around 1983, the closest the world had come to nuclear war since 1962, in general popular culture, men’s action fiction, nuclear realism, and feminist science fiction. A conclusion briefly discusses the legacy of these decades in today’s anxieties around security, borders, and apocalypse both real and imagined.

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Referral Patterns for Youths Identified at Risk for Suicide by Trained Gatekeepers

Crisis ◽

10.1027/0227-5910/a000114 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 113-119 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Michael S. Rodi ◽

Lucas Godoy Garraza ◽

Christine Walrath ◽

Robert L. Stephens ◽

D. Susanne Condron ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Suicide Prevention ◽

Demographic Characteristics ◽

Service Access ◽

Referral Patterns ◽

Race And Gender ◽

Lee Smith ◽

Prevention Behavior ◽

Key Variables ◽

And Gender ◽

To Receive

Background: In order to better understand the posttraining suicide prevention behavior of gatekeeper trainees, the present article examines the referral and service receipt patterns among gatekeeper-identified youths. Methods: Data for this study were drawn from 26 Garrett Lee Smith grantees funded between October 2005 and October 2009 who submitted data about the number, characteristics, and service access of identified youths. Results: The demographic characteristics of identified youths are not related to referral type or receipt. Furthermore, referral setting does not seem to be predictive of the type of referral. Demographic as well as other (nonrisk) characteristics of the youths are not key variables in determining identification or service receipt. Limitations: These data are not necessarily representative of all youths identified by gatekeepers represented in the dataset. The prevalence of risk among all members of the communities from which these data are drawn is unknown. Furthermore, these data likely disproportionately represent gatekeepers associated with systems that effectively track gatekeepers and youths. Conclusions: Gatekeepers appear to be identifying youth across settings, and those youths are being referred for services without regard for race and gender or the settings in which they are identified. Furthermore, youths that may be at highest risk may be more likely to receive those services.

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