scholarly journals Dystopias Go Global: The Transnational Reorganization of Territories and Societies in Elysium

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-125
Author(s):  
Pablo Gómez Muñoz
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
First Century ◽  
Neoliberal Globalization ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Century Science

This article argues that at the turn of the twenty-first century science fiction (SF) cinema has begun to show particular interest in transnational interactions and cosmopolitan concerns. The article focuses on one of the most representative groups of this trend: dystopias that explore the transnational systems that shape deeply unequal societies. The first part of the article provides an overview of the different transnational issues that contemporary dystopias deal with. The article then presents the film Elysium (Neill Blomkamp, 2013) as a representative example of this trend. The analysis of Elysium sheds light on several socioeconomic and territorial processes that are shaping the development of neoliberal globalization in the twenty-first century: extraterritorial operations, market incorporation, and the reorganization and superposition of borders. The article concludes that Elysium and similar films at first appear to criticize a set of structures and practices that prevent large numbers of people from living in decent conditions, but eventually reproduce the same circumstances and hierarchies that they appear to denounce.

scholarly journals Living with Speculative Infrastructures

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ziser
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
First Century ◽  
Ray Bradbury ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Century Science

This article looks at the California origins of much of Twentieth Century science fiction. It examines how the exploding growth and development of postwar California informed science fiction writers like Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and Philip K. Dick, and looks to their books for answers to twenty-first century dilemmas such as the uses of technology, the environment, and infrastructure.

Eve as Cyborg

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Colleen M. Conway
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
First Century ◽  
Common Elements ◽  
Greek Myth ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Donna Haraway ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Gender Patterns ◽  
Century Science

The essay argues that the figure of the female cyborg introduced by Donna Haraway has yet to live up to its post-gender emancipatory promise. Both Haraway and Jack Halberstam contrast the female cyborg with the biblical Eve and her mythic origins in the garden of Eden. I argue that the figure of Eve is actually an ancient precursor to the female cyborg. Even more than the Greek myth of Pygmalion, the Eden myth shares common elements with later stories of man-made women. Like them, Eve was made to satisfy male desire, but then followed her own desires. Like later stories of female cyborgs, the representation of Eve reflects both male desire and male fear. After analyzing both Ovid’s Pygmalion and Genesis 2-3, I trace common elements through the nineteenth century science fiction novel L’Eve future and the twenty-first century film Ex Machina. Like Eve, the female cyborgs in these works are built in a garden and their “emancipation” occurs only within the confines of androcentric heteronormative gender patterns.

Kids on Bikes in Twenty-First-Century Nostalgia Science Fiction

2020 ◽  
pp. 189-222
Author(s):  
Jeremy Withers
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
First Century ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Motorized Transport

This final chapter focuses on one of the most recent and most popular trends happening right now in science fiction, the rise of a decidedly nostalgic form of science fiction. In particular, the trend examined in this chapter is one called ‘1980s-nostalgia science fiction’ and is made up of science fiction literary and screen texts from c. 2010-present that exhibit a profound fondness for or interest in the American 1980s. The three nostalgia texts that comprise the focus of this chapter are Super 8, Stranger Things, and Paper Girls. After first discussing what is one of the most influential texts for this 1980s-nostalgia science fiction – Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extra Terrestrial – this chapter then analyzes how these nostalgia texts align themselves with Spielberg’s blockbuster film by demonizing motorized transport while simultaneously exalting the bicycle.

The Future of Epic in Cinema

2018 ◽  
pp. 119-132
Author(s):  
Pantelis Michelakis
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
First Century ◽  
Genre Criticism ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
The Future ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter explores the ways in which the generic label of ‘epic’ might be deemed relevant for Ridley Scott’s film Prometheus (2012), and more broadly for the ways in which a discussion about the meanings of epic in early twenty-first-century cinema might be undertaken outside the genre of ‘historical epic’. It argues for the need to explore how ‘epic science fiction’ operates in Scott’s Prometheus in ways that both relate and transcend common definitions of the term ‘epic’ in contemporary popular culture. It also focuses on the unorthodox models of biological evolution of the film’s narrative, suggesting ways in which they can help with genre criticism. When it comes to cinematic intertextuality, a discussion about generic taxonomies and transformations cannot be conducted at the beginning of the twenty-first century without reflecting on the tropes that cinema animates and the fears it enacts at the heart of our genetic imaginary.

Staying Mobile in Postapocalyptic Cli-Fi

2020 ◽  
pp. 159-188
Author(s):  
Jeremy Withers
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
First Century ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Twenty First Century

This chapter examines how the rising popularity since the 1990s of works of postapocalyptic cli-fi (i.e. climate change fiction) has provided science fiction writers a convenient opportunity to explore issues of mobility and transportation. After first examining an early postapocalyptic cli-fi work from the 1990s by Octavia E. Butler, the chapter then advances this book’s chronological analysis to some twenty-first century works of science fiction. In its discussion of a novel by Paolo Bacigalupi and one by Benjamin Parzybok, this chapter shows how more restrained modes of transport play a vital role during times of apocalypse in keeping a society functioning and keeping us as individuals from slipping into disempowerment.

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