Beyond Borders with Miéville, Borges, Wolfe, Ligotti, and Numenera

Dread Trident ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 195-222
Author(s):  
Curtis D. Carbonell
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Dungeons And Dragons ◽  
Far Future

This chapter examines a final case study, the TRPG Numenera. It finds in writers such as China Miéville and Gene Wolfe precursors of how literary studies can inform and understanding of the imaginary worlds found in a game like Numenera. Miéville, for example, finds roots for his Bas Lag trilogy in elements from TRPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, articulating a granular style of textured detail like that found in the best of Lovecraft. With Wolfe, this chapter reads his blending of science fiction and fantasy elements, especially how he embraces a magical impulse. Numenera incorporates these elements into a post-anthropocene setting that imagines a post-human far future. Its cosmicism, though, lacks the pessimism of Lovecraft or a writer like Thomas Ligotto, who this chapter sees as moving beyond Lovecraft, yet retaining much of his insistence in resisting drawing the ultimate horror. This chapter ends by arguing that realized worlds such as those inspired by Lovecraft, e.g. Numenera, can also be seen in the first season of the HBO series True Detective, a series that valorized a pulp fantasism, yet refused to acknowledge it in the end.

Context Mediated

2017 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-63
Author(s):  
Benjamin Pickford
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Ralph Waldo Emerson ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Economic Relation ◽  
Economic Agency

Benjamin Pickford, “Context Mediated: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Political Economy of Plagiarism” (pp. 35–63) Context has long been a critical determiner of methodologies for literary studies, granting scholars the tools to make objective claims about a text’s political or economic relation to the situation of its genesis. This essay argues that Ralph Waldo Emerson anticipatively criticizes our commitment to such practices through his use of plagiarism—a literary mode that exemplifies the denial of the sovereignty of context. I focus on two core principles that underlie Emerson’s conception of literature’s civic role in Essays: Second Series (1844): first, that literature is driven by an impulse to decontextualize; second, that this means that it has a deep affinity with the deterritorializing logic of capital. Provocatively proposing Emerson as a theorist of the relation between literature and economics, I argue that Essays: Second Series shows how the literary text can negotiate its ineluctable culpability with capitalism, but this does not mean that it can presume to possess a privileged point of vantage that might deny such culpability. Given that this is precisely what much historicizing or contextualizing scholarship implies, I contend that Emerson gives us a case study in the limits of literature and criticism’s economic agency.

Science Fiction and Administrative Truths: The Short Story and Novella as Administrative Cases

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Nolan J. Argyle ◽  
Lee M. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Organizational Complexity ◽  
Professional Career ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Hands On

Pre-service and in-service MPA students share a common desire for hands-on, real world instruction related to their professional career goals, leading to a pedagogic discounting of fiction as an appropriate tool for analyzing and "solving" problems. However, several factors weigh heavily in favor of using science fiction short stories and novellas in the MPA classroom setting. These include the need for interesting case scenarios exploring various administrative issues; leveling the playing field between the two types of students by de-emphasizing the use of "contemporary" cases; access to literature that explores the future shock of increasing organizational complexity; and the desirability of Rorschach type materials that facilitate discussion of. values and administrative truths. The discussion proceeds by tracing the development of the case study technique, its advantages and disadvantages in the classroom, addressing the utility of "fiction" as an educational resource, and showing how the science fiction literature has matured to the point where it can be applied in all of the major sub-fields of public administration. Several outstanding examples are detailed, and a thorough bibliography is provided.

scholarly journals Visions of Human Futures in Space and SETI

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason T. Wright ◽  
Michael P. Oman-Reagan
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Dark Matter Particle ◽  
Short Term ◽  
National Science ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Far Future ◽  
Made In

We discuss how visions for the futures of humanity in space and SETI are intertwined, and are shaped by prior work in the fields and by science fiction. This appears in the language used in the fields, and in the sometimes implicit assumptions made in discussions of them. We give examples from articulations of the so-called Fermi Paradox, discussions of the settlement of the Solar System (in the near future) and the Galaxy (in the far future), and METI. We argue that science fiction, especially the campy variety, is a significant contributor to the ‘giggle factor’ that hinders serious discussion and funding for SETI and Solar System settlement projects. We argue that humanity's long-term future in space will be shaped by our short-term visions for who goes there and how. Because of the way they entered the fields, we recommend avoiding the term ‘colony’ and its cognates when discussing the settlement of space, as well as other terms with similar pedigrees. We offer examples of science fiction and other writing that broaden and challenge our visions of human futures in space and SETI. In an appendix, we use an analogy with the well-funded and relatively uncontroversial searches for the dark matter particle to argue that SETI's lack of funding in the national science portfolio is primarily a problem of perception, not inherent merit.Also on arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1708.05318Please cite this version:Wright, Jason T., and Michael P. Oman-Reagan. “Visions of Human Futures in Space and SETI.” International Journal of Astrobiology, 2017, 1–12. doi:10.1017/S1473550417000222.

scholarly journals Beyond Belief

Aries ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Christine Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Imaginative Literature

Abstract Over the last decade, esotericism studies has witnessed a distinct literary turn, as more and more of the field’s primarily religious studies-based researchers have recognized the value, and indeed, centrality, of imaginative literature to the transmission of occult and new religious ideas. Although welcome, this impetus has sometimes taken an anti-aesthetic shape, reducing the texts it incorporates to little more than empirical evidence of authorial belief or practical occult experience. Accompanying this tendency has been a suspicion of the formalist, post-modern, and/or political forms of interpretation common within contemporary literary studies as being ideologically tainted or even wilfully perverse in their resistance to surface meaning. My article uses a case study of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Land of Mist (1926), a seemingly straightforward example of an emic novel whose author’s spiritualist belief and conversionist intentions are well known, to demonstrate the limitations of such a biographically reductionist hermeneutic, and to call for a greater diversity of approach within literary esotericism studies.

CYRANO DE BERGERAC AS A PREDECESSOR OF SCIENCE FICTION PROSE

2021 ◽  
pp. 113-124
Author(s):  
Natalia Pakhsaryan ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Cyrano De Bergerac ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Century Literature

The article considers the genre of Cyranoʼs novel «Another world», widely discussed in both domestic and foreign literary studies. It explores the elements of science fiction in contrast to those of the miraculous, as they appear in the 17th-century literature, and identifies the features of utopianism and the peculiarities of scientific forecasting in the work. Both parts of «Another world» are examined in their similarities and differences from one another, as well as combination of universalism and topical issues of the novel with narrative irony and burlesque.

Fighting for the Future

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Star Trek ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Television Series ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Moment

The first two seasons of the television series Star Trek: Discovery, the newest instalment in the long-running and influential Star Trek franchise, received media and academic attention from the moment they arrived on screen. Discovery makes several key changes to Star Trek’s well-known narrative formulae, particularly the use of more serialized storytelling, appealing to audiences’ changed viewing habits in the streaming age – and yet the storylines, in their topical nature and the broad range of socio-political issues they engage with, continue in the political vein of the franchise’s megatext. This volume brings together eighteen essays and one interview about the series, with contributions from a variety of disciplines including cultural studies, literary studies, media studies, fandom studies, history and political science. They explore representations of gender, sexuality and race, as well as topics such as shifts in storytelling and depictions of diplomacy. Examining Discovery alongside older entries into the Star Trek canon and tracing emerging continuities and changes, this volume will be an invaluable resource for all those interested in Star Trek and science fiction in the franchise era.

Dungeons and Dragons’ Multiverse

Dread Trident ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 80-108
Author(s):  
Curtis D. Carbonell
Keyword(s):  
Imaginary World ◽  
Critical Elements ◽  
Dungeons And Dragons

This chapter analyses Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) as a case study for the investigation into how a seminal fantasy imaginary world has been represented through 40 years of gametexts. It does so by focusing on the grand metaverse within which players play this game. It sees in the construction of this metaverse critical elements that facilitate the harmonization of the different settings. For example, the different ‘planes’ of existence, as well as a godswar demonstrate how the designers have consistently crafted these imaginary worlds with both an ability to embrace highly textured and disparate details, as well as a sense of continuity and cohesion. This chapter addresses several of the most popular settings, such as Mystara, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Krynn, Spelljammer, and Planescape. It focuses on the Forgotten Realms as a stellar example of how a fantasy gameworld develops as a shared universe into a realized world.

Dizzy à la Mimi: Jazz, Text, and Translation

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-154
Author(s):  
BENJAMIN GIVAN
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
American Literature ◽  
African American Literature ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Collaborative Relationship ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
French Edition ◽  
French Texts

AbstractThis article addresses issues of translation and transnational exchange, taking as a case study the two-pronged collaborative relationship between the French jazz singer, lyricist, and translator Mimi Perrin (1926–2010) and the African American trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (1917–1993), whose memoir Perrin translated into French and with whom she collaborated on a 1963 jazz album. Perrin, who is the article's principal focus, founded the successful vocalese singing group Les Double Six in 1959 and then, after abandoning her musical career for health reasons in 1966, forged a new career as a literary translator. The article begins by examining her work as a translator of African American literature and demonstrates that her French edition of Gillespie's autobiography lacks some of the original's connotative cultural signification, in particular meanings conveyed through the book's use of black dialect. The article then turns to Perrin's work as a vocalese lyricist, which is notable in that she conceived of her lyricization of jazz improvisations as a sort of translation process, one that involved carefully selecting words in order to mimic the sounds of musical instruments. Her musical innovations are exemplified by a series of original French texts, set to Gillespie's music, on science fiction themes.

scholarly journals The Blackness of Liet-Kynes: Reading Frank Herbert’s Dune Through James Cone

Religions ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 281
Author(s):  
Peter Herman
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
White Identity ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Far Future

Frank Herbert’s landmark science fiction novel Dune has received numerous sequels, prequels, and film treatments. Detailing the saga of humanity’s far future beyond our present solar system, the work plays successfully with religious, political, and ecological themes. This essay deals with the social/theological implications of two figures within the story-world of Dune: Its protagonist and visible hero, Paul Atreides/Muad’Dib and the lesser figure of the “Imperial Planetologist” Dr. Kynes, also known to the Fremen as “Liet”. By reading these two figures through the theology of James Cone, we discover that the obvious hero is not a messianic figure but a demonic one. Further, it is the lesser character of Liet-Kynes who actually fulfills the messianic role in Cone’s theological system. This essay is preceded by and makes use of Jeremy Ian Kirk’s work with the film Avatar that provides similar analysis. Where Kirk’s principal concern is with the ethical considerations of Avatar, this essay will more closely bear on Cone’s dynamic of redemption and conversion, specifically his notion of dying to white identity to be reborn in blackness.

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