scholarly journals History of Soviet Cinematography: Regional Aspect, Banned Films and Science Fiction Movies

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Regional Aspect ◽  
History Of

Popular Fiction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roslyn Weaver
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Historical Fiction ◽  
Popular Fiction ◽  
Crime Fiction ◽  
Historical Change ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
History Of

This chapter discusses the history of popular fiction in Australia. The question of place has always been central to Australian fiction, not only as a thematic element but also as a critical or political preoccupation. In part, this is because popular fiction writers, wanting to attract broad audiences, either exploited their Australian content to appeal to international readers or have excised the local to produce a generic and thus more readily accessible setting for outsiders. The chapter considers works by popular fiction writers who adopt a range of positions in relation to their focus on place, but often tackle many different aspects of Australian social and historical change. These novels cover various genres such as crime fiction, historical fiction and romance, science fiction and fantasy, and include Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), Nevil Shute's On the Beach (1957), Damien Broderick's The Dreaming Dragons (1980), and Cecilia Dart-Thornton's The Ill-Made Mute (2001).

Genre Fiction since 1950

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Lawn
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Domestic Fiction ◽  
Genre Fiction ◽  
History Of

This chapter discusses the history of genre fiction in New Zealand since 1950. Crime writers such as Vanda Symon and Paul Cleave exploit the phenomenon of ‘glocalization’ by locating an international genre in distinctively local settings. Others, like Nalini Singh and Phillip Mann, embrace the alternative worlds of science fiction and fantasy without any sense that a local referent is necessary or desirable. The chapter first considers how New Zealand crime writers add distinctively Kiwi twists to their work before turning to crime thrillers by Paul Thomas and others. It also examines fiction featuring female detectives, including those written by Vanda Symon, as well as genre hybrids such as historical crime and domestic fiction. Finally, it analyses examples of literary noir by Charlotte Grimshaw, Carl Nixon, and Chad Taylor and political dystopias from C. K. Stead to Bernard Beckett.

Salvage

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 845-859
Author(s):  
EVAN CALDER WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Insurance Law ◽  
Future Possibility ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Personal Risk ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
History Of

This essay develops a history of salvage both as particular activity and as concept, arguing that it has quietly become one of the fundamental structures of thought that shape how we envision future possibility. However, the contemporary sense of the word, which designates the recuperation or search for value in what has already been destroyed, is a recent one and represents a significant transformation from the notion of salvage in early modern European maritime and insurance law. In that earlier iteration, salvage denoted payment received for helping to avert a disaster, such as keeping the ship and its goods from sinking in the first place. Passing through the dislocation of this concept into private salvage firms, firefighting companies, military usage, avant-garde art, and onto the human body itself in the guise of “personal risk,” the essay argues that the twentieth century becomes indelibly marked by a sense of the disaster that has already occurred. The second half of the essay passes into speculative culture, including fiction, video games, and film, to suggest that the most critical approaches to salvage have often come under the sign of science fiction but that the last decade in particular has shown how recent quotidian patterns of gentrification and defused antagonism have articulated stranger shifts in the figure of salvage than any speculative imaginary can currently manage.

scholarly journals Counterfactuality as a Polyphonic Assemblage. Entangled Human and Nonhuman Stories of Early Modern Sciences in Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-121
Author(s):  
Mateusz Chaberski
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Multispecies Ethnography ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Neal Stephenson ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Point Of Departure

Summary In recent science-fiction literature, we can witness a proliferation of new counterfactual narratives which take the 17th century as their point of departure. Unlike steampunk narratives, however, their aim is not to criticise the socio-political effects caused by contemporary technological development. Such authors as Neal Stephenson or Ian Tregillis, among others, are interested in revisiting the model of development in Western societies, routing around the logic of progress. Moreover, they demonstrate that modernity is but an effect of manifold contingent and indeterminate encounters of humans and nonhumans and their distinct temporalities. Even the slightest modification of their ways of being could have changed Western societies and cultures. Thus, they necessitate a rather non-anthropocentric model of counterfactuality which is not tantamount to the traditional alternative histories which depart from official narratives of the past. By drawing on contemporary multispecies ethnography, I put forward a new understanding of counter-factuality which aims to reveal multiple entangled human and nonhuman stories already embedded in the seemingly unified history of the West. In this context, the concept of “polyphonic assemblage” (Lowenhaupt-Tsing) is employed to conceptualize the contingent and open-ended encounters of human and nonhuman historical actors which cut across different discourses and practices. I analyse Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle to show the entangled stories of humans and nonhumans in 17th century sciences, hardly present in traditional historiographies. In particular, Stephenson’s depiction of quicksilver and coffeehouse as nonhuman historical actors is scrutinized to show their vital role in the production of knowledge at the dawn of modernity.

scholarly journals Transhumanism: from Julian Huxley to UNESCO

JAHR ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-160
Author(s):  
Christian Byk
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Director General ◽  
Aldous Huxley ◽  
Julian Huxley ◽  
Science And Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Brave New World

Julian Huxley, founder and the first Director-General of UNESCO, is at the heart of contemporary debates on the nature and objectives of the concept of transhumanism, which he first used in the early 1950s. Therefore, the analysis of his idea of transhumanism - a tool to improve the quality of life and the condition of man - should lead us to question his heritage in terms of philosophy that inspires UNESCO’s action as it seeks to build a comprehensive approach to artificial intelligence that takes into account, among other things, the values and principles of universal ethics and aims to derive the best from the use of this technology. This title where the British biologist, the elder brother of the famous science fiction writer, Aldous Huxley, author of the Brave New World, coexists with the United Nations Organization in charge of Education of Science and Culture is obvious for those who know the history of this international organization or who like radio games: Julian Huxley was appointed as the first Director-General of UNESCO in 1946. But, beyond this evidence, there is a deeper link that highlights the history of the renewal of the idea of transhumanism (I) and questions about the role that UNESCO has, among the other international organizations (II).

scholarly journals Repackaging Popular Culture: Commentary and Critique in Community

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tully Barnett ◽  
Ben Kooyman
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
Fan Culture ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nerd Culture ◽  
The Big Bang

Contemporaneous with the collision of Science Fiction/Fantasy with the mainstream evident in the success of nerd culture show The Big Bang Theory (2007- ), Joss Whedon’s The Avengers (2012), the growth of Comic Con audiences and so on, Dan Harmon developed Community (2009- ), a sitcom depicting a study group at a second-rate community college. The show exemplifies a recent gravitation away from the multi-camera, laugh-track driven sitcom formula, alternating between “straight” episodes dealing with traditional sitcom premises, though always inflected with self-aware acumen, and more ambitious, unconventional episodes featuring outlandish premises, often infused with the trappings of genre and geek fandom. The show presents apocalyptic action- and Western-style paintball wars, epidemics that evoke zombie cinema, a Yahtzee game that spirals into alternate timelines, and a high-stakes Dungeons and Dragons game that blurs the boundaries between reality and fantasy.  Both the straight and the unconventional episodes ultimately serve the same purpose, examining the intersection between nerd culture and everyday life. This essay discusses a number of episodes which exemplify Community’s intersections between everyday life and popular culture, charting the show’s evolving preoccupation with pop culture and intertwining of reality and fantasy. It discusses Community’s self-referentiality as a sitcom, its ambitious and elaborate recreations of and homages to pop culture artefacts, and its explicit gravitation towards Science Fiction and Telefantasy in its third season. Through its various homages to popular culture and ongoing depiction of fan culture, we posit that the show is both a work of fandom and a work about fandom, advocating for the pivotal role of fandom in everyday life and for popular culture as a tool for interpreting, comprehending and navigating life. In this respect, the show contributes to the long history of both the sitcom and Telefantasy as vehicles for cultural commentary.

Sideways in Time

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Contemporary Fiction ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Pulitzer Prize ◽  
Current Form ◽  
Alternate History ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Science Fiction Studies

This book is the first collection of scholarly essays on alternate history in over a decade and features contributions from a mixture of major figures and rising stars in the field of science fiction studies. Alternate history is a genre of fiction which, although connected to the genres of utopian, dystopian and science fiction, has its own rich history and lineage. With roots in the writings of ancient Rome, alternate history matured into something close to its current form in the essays and novels of the nineteenth century. In more recent years a number of highly acclaimed novels have been published as alternate histories, by authors ranging from science fiction bestsellers to Pulitzer Prize-winning literary icons. The success and popularity of the genre is reflected in its success on television with original concepts being developed alongside adaptations of iconic texts. This important collection of essays seeks to redress an imbalance between the importance and quality of alternate history texts and the available scholarship and critical readings of texts, providing chapters by both leading scholars in the field and rising stars. The chapters in this book acknowledge the long and distinctive history of the genre whilst also revelling in its vitality, adaptability, and contemporary relevance, with many of the chapters discussing late-twentieth and early-twenty-first century contemporary fiction texts which have received little or no sustained critical analysis elsewhere in print.

‘At the Expense of Human Values’

2020 ◽  
pp. 35-48
Author(s):  
Joshua Grimm
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Silicon Valley ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Mad Scientist ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

Ex Machina plays against type extremely well, and it is, in part, particularly effective because of the genre tropes are relatively consistent. There’s really only one term to cinematically describe a reclusive, temperamental genius working on a project he hopes will change humanity: the mad scientist. In the history of science fiction film, the mad scientist has traditionally either been directly responsible for a crisis (potential or realized) by creating the problem, or indirectly responsible by trying to control something so powerful that no one could possibly control it. The latter was used largely in the 1950s and 1970s by reflecting the two perceived threats during those eras: atomic/nuclear power and pollution, respectively. But in these films, the extent of the power being studied must be balanced against what that scientist is trying to accomplish. In Ex Machina, Nathan’s portrayal is a fascinating one, embodying the Silicon Valley, “work hard, play hard” bro-culture we see in the U.S. tech industry, and he’s able to completely detach his own actions/desires from his work, a cognitive dissonance that allows him to create a line of slaves at the same time he tries to reproduce artificial intelligence. This chapter will place Nathan within the larger context of science fiction’s history of mad scientists, analyzing similarities and determining what those differences mean.

The Golden Path

Dune ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 115-117
Author(s):  
Christian McCrea
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Golden Path

This chapter examines the unexpected longevity of David Lynch's Dune, a film that was for many deemed dead on arrival. It assesses Dune's lasting legacy from absurd tie-in merchandise to incredible comic translations to the videogames that changed game history in significant ways. It also emphasizes how Lynch's Dune demands the attention like no other film as it unfolds ceremonially into a dream already in motion. The chapter discusses how Dune remains a focused, singular vision that startles and delights in its difference in the history of science-fiction cinema. It reviews every dashed hope and upraised hand of anguish that believed Dune's literary universe could be adapted if given the right conditions. It talks about how Dune represents so much to so many in search of parables of failure, promise, corrupt systems and ineffable creative possibility.

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