5 Speculative Fiction and the Significance of Plausibility: Dystopian Science in the Critical Response to Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

2021 ◽  
pp. 101-125
Author(s):  
Anna Auguscik ◽  
Sina Farzin ◽  
Emanuel Herold ◽  
Anton Kirchhofer
Keyword(s):  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
Oryx And Crake

scholarly journals “Footprint”: The Apocalyptic Imprint of End as Immanent in Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise B. Dillon
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
Human Control ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Oryx And Crake ◽  
Environmental Imagination ◽  
Human Desire ◽  
Ultimate Control

In her speculative fiction novel, Oryx and Crake, Atwood explores and challenges readers with visions of loss: the extinction of life forms, of culture, and loss of human control over various systems including those of language, economy and ecology. All such systems are prone to human manipulative influence and sensitive to minor alterations that result in major disruptions and ultimately to extinction, disappearance (both forms of loss) or, at best, altered forms of survival. I consider here McKibben’s suggestion that we live in a “postnatural world” because human activity has altered things as fundamental as the weather, and explore Atwood’s depiction of some of the consequences of a human-altered future in which a great city transforms into a harsh, tropical wilderness. I also apply Buell’s notion that apocalyptic rhetoric serves to alert people to global environmental threats by arousing their imagination to a “sense of crisis,” through this “master metaphor”. If only perceptions to threats are sufficiently aroused such that people are spurred to action, real apocalypse might thereby be delayed.  Buell expresses the view that the environmental imagination has a sure role in how people might be able to adapt to transformations in the environment by gaining understanding of what the human relation to nature can be and what it should be. The notion of apocalypse is a strong and enduring theme in literature and is of particular relevance to speculative fiction pertaining to human desire to exercise ultimate control, as is Oryx and Crake.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Monster Tale: Frankensteinian Tropes in Margaret Atwood’s Speculative Fiction

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 125-142
Author(s):  
Monika Kosa
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Postmodern Literature ◽  
Magnum Opus ◽  
Oryx And Crake

Mary Shelley’s iconic Frankenstein is a pivotal work in the Western canon. Since its publication in 1818, the novel has been re-written and adapted many times. Shelley’s magnum opus sublimely evokes the postlapsarian condition of the fallen, while also capturing the imminent fear of technology, scientific progress and artificial procreation. The paper aims to explore the Frankenstein legacy and the development of Frankensteinian motifs in Atwood’s speculative fiction. More precisely, the paper focuses on The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), The MaddAddam Trilogy – Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), MaddAddam (2013), and The Heart Goes Last (2015), analyzing how postmodern literature recycles and incorporates elements from Frankenstein to reflect (on) contemporary anxieties and to insist on the fluid discursivity of monstrosity.

Architecture after Drafting

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-134
Author(s):  
Keller Sean
Keyword(s):  
Dominant Role ◽  
Recent Argument ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
Computational Representations

"In den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten wurde die Dominanz des Zeichnens für die Architektur von einer ganzen Reihe von digitalen Repräsentationstechniken verdrängt. Der Beitrag stellt eine kritische Antwort auf Mario Carpos These dar, dieser Wandel bringe Architektur zu einer »autographischen« Praxis zurück, die noch vor die Renaissance zurückreiche. Demgegenüber argumentiert der Beitrag, dass Architektur nach dem Modell von Rosalind Kraus als post-medium art (»postmediale Kunst«) gedacht werden sollte. </br></br>Over the last two decades drawing has been displaced from its dominant role in architecture by a range of computational representations. This article offers a critical response to Mario Carpo's recent argument that this shift returns architecture to an 〉autographic〈 mode of practice not seen since before the Renaissance. In contrast, I suggest that architecture today should be thought of through Rosalind Krauss's model of a post-medium art. "

scholarly journals Effective Elements for Workplace Responses to Critical Incidents and Suicide: A Rapid Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 4821
Author(s):  
Tania Pearce ◽  
Lyndal Bugeja ◽  
Sarah Wayland ◽  
Myfanwy Maple
Keyword(s):  
Critical Incidents ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Rapid Review ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Study Quality ◽  
Training Module ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
Response Training ◽  
Academic Search ◽  
And Training

Despite high rates of critical incidents (CIs) in working class occupations, there is a significant gap in our understanding of responses to these events. In this study, we aimed to inform a response training module by synthesising the key elements of pre-, during- and post-incident responses to CIs and suicide in the workplace. A rapid review identified studies on responses to CIs or suicide deaths in the workplace published between January 2015 and June 2020. A systematic search of six databases (Medline, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Sociology Collection, Academic Search and Business Search Complete) and grey literature was performed. Studies were excluded if the focus was on non-colleagues. Two reviewers independently conducted record screening, a review of the full text and assessed study quality. The existing evidence was synthesised and interventions were categorised using Haddon’s Matrix. Five studies were included, reporting on CIs across a range of workplace settings, including railways, factories, police and military, along with external critical response units. Overall, study quality was assessed as being poor. Most of the evidence focused on the pre-incident and post-incident stage. There is little evidence on responses to CIs in the workplace. Evidence-based education and training is necessary to establish organisational responses to assist with supporting workers exposed to workplace CIs.

Paradoxes of democracy: Rousseau and Hegel on democratic deliberation

2021 ◽  
pp. 019145372199070
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Rustighi
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
Pluralistic Society ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Deliberative Processes

In this article, I engage with what relevant literature addresses as the ‘paradox of democracy’ and trace it back to the dialectic between authorization and representation established by social contract theories. To make my argument, I take Rousseau’s Social Contract as a paradigmatic example of the paradox and analyse it in light of Hegel’s critical response. My aim is to show that, although Rousseau rejects the idea of representing the popular will, representation resurfaces in his Republic from top to bottom and engenders a structural opposition between citizens and rulers: drawing on the Hegelian scrutiny of contractarianism, I focus on three key moments in Rousseau’s theory, namely the Lawgiver, the majority rule and the executive power. After illustrating how the social contract undermines democratic participation in deliberative processes, I suggest that Hegel’s philosophy of right overcomes the paradox by positively assuming it as a dialectical contradiction that requires a specific constitutional approach to democracy. In this sense, I argue, the Hegelian perspective on democratic deliberation helps us to better frame Rousseau’s ambition to conceive the Republic as a free community of equals and urges us to elaborate a more coherent understanding of participation in a pluralistic society.

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