MUNDANE SCIENCE FICTION: LOSS OF DREAMS OR MATURITY?

The aim of the paper is to study the role of the mundane in contemporary culture based on the mundane science fiction (MSF). The term originated in 2004 thanks to «The Mundane Manifesto» by Geoff Ryman and his anonymous co-authors who argued for a focus on the modern science paradigm instead of dreams of outer space. The Manifesto outlines SF subgenre, where the setting is in the near future on the Earth or within the Solar System, excluding interstellar travel or contact with aliens. MSF suggests the believable use of technology and science, as it exists at the current time or a plausible extension of existing technology. There is a debate about the genre limits and its canonical works since it also covers cyberpunk, dystopia, etc. Remarkably, in the Soviet literature, such a genre called «near-future science fiction» existed in the 1940s and 1950s. It is a subgenre of «hard» SF focusing on the inventions useful for the national economy and lacking psychological depth of characters. This literature mostly had low artistic quality because of the Soviet ideological pressure and many limitations.The benefits of the paper are the following. First, the author distinguishes between two ma in approaches to SF, namely a more practical and literal reception and a more metaphorical reception. The former is characteristic of readers of realistic literature who try to find the true-to-life elements in SF blamed as escapism. The latter is close to the SF fans. However, blaming SF for escapism seems an excessive sociologizing of literature and ignoring the great role of metaphor in cultural development. Consequently, MSF is an effort to bridge a gap between SF and realistic literature. Second, the paper presents the first attempt to compare MSF to the Soviet «near-future SF». The author argues that since such a «near-future SF» occupies a niche in Western literature, it is a sign of the global changesthat are taking place during the lifetime of the current generation, bringing, in addition to progress, the acute threat of environmental catastrophe. Moreover, the role of neo Marxism, on the one hand, and technophobia, on the other hand, are emphasized. Third, for the first time the possible connections between MSF and the frontier myth important for the American national cultural mythology are studied. At the core of Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel «Aurora» (2015) and James Gray’s movie «Ad Astra» (2019), MSF is regarded as a rejection of the ideology «space: the final frontier». Both works shift the focus from the global to the personal, from the unusual to the mundane, from expansion and colonization to the internal problems. The author concludes that the anthropological turn occurs in SF as well: there is a loss of metaphor, allegory, and archetypal basis, an abandonment of escapism, Enlightenment utopianism, belief in progress, romanticism, and industrialism in favor of more realistic view on the future of humankind. Unfortunately, in many cases, «mundane» means not only «mature» but «boring» here, making SF more science than fiction.

Cowboy Cops and Black Lives Matter: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and the Great White West[ern]

The racial framework of Martin McDonagh’s 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri rests at the intersection of three persistent cultural myths—the Frontier Myth, the hero cowboy myth and the myth of white supremacy. There has been much criticism of the portrayal of black characters in the film, and particularly the lack of significant black characters in a film that sports a solid undercurrent of racial politics. While the black characters in the film occupy a small amount of screen time, this paper argues that the film’s treatment of black characters, including their absence, puts on display the cultural dysfunction of racial politics in the US, especially in rural America, and particularly in Missouri. The film’s subversion of the cowboy hero instead reveals the disturbing reality of the Frontier Myth and its dependence on racism and white supremacy for validation. In its unmasking of myth, Three Billboards challenges the illusion of a glorious Western past that never existed and at the same time supports racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement.

White Zombie as Captivity Narrative and the Death of Certainty

Horror films such as White Zombie (1932) reveal viewers to themselves by narrating in the currency of audience anxiety. Such movies evoke fright because they recapitulate fear and trauma that audiences have already internalized or continue to experience, even if they are not aware of it. White Zombie’s particular tack conjures up an updated captivity narrative wherein a virginal white damsel is abducted by a savage other. The shell of the captivity story is as old as America and relates closely to the Western and to the frontier myth, from which the Western emerged. What inexorably links the Western and all zombie films is the notion of containment. Whereas the Western sought to contain the American Other, all zombie films ask, instead, what happens if the other breaks through the proverbial gates. In other words, what if containment fails?

Simulated authenticity: Storytelling and mythic space on the hyper-frontier in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Westworld

This article explores how the mythic, nineteenth-century American frontier is authenticated by postmodern forms of storytelling. The study examines accounts of William Cody’s extensive 1902–1903 Buffalo Bill’ s Wild West tours in the United Kingdom and the futuristic television series, HBO’s Westworld (2016–), which is set in an android-hosted theme park. Comparing the semiotics of the two examples indicates how over a century apart, the authentication of the myth involves repeating motifs of setting, action and character central to tourist fantasies. The research illustrates how some elements of the myth seem to remain fixed but are negotiable. It is suggested that both examples are versions of a ‘hyper-frontier’, a nostalgic yet progressive, intertextual retelling of the American West and its archetypal characters, characterised by advanced technology. The implications for tourism are that simulating the authenticity of the frontier myth creates doubts in its veracity paradoxically due to its lifelikeness.

The Other in Science Fiction as a Problem for Social Theory

The paper discusses science fiction literature in its relation to some aspects of the socio-anthropological problem, such as the representation of the Other. Given the diversity of sci-fi genres, a researcher always deals either with the direct representation of the Other (a creature different from an existing human being), or with its indirect, mediated form when the Other, in the original sense of this term, is revealed to the reader or viewer through the optics of some Other World. The article describes two modes of representing the Other by sci-fi literature, conventionally designated as scientist and anti-anthropic. The scientist rep-resentation constructs exclusively-rational premises for the relationship with the Other. Edmund Hus-serl’s concept of truth, which is the same for humans, non-humans, angels, and gods, can be considered as its historical and philosophical correlate. The anti-anthropic representation, which is more attractive to sci-fi authors, has its origins in the experience of the “disenchantment” of the world characteristic of mod-ern man, especially in the tragic feeling of incommensurability of a finite human existence and the infinity of the cosmic abysses. The historical and philosophical correlate of this anti-anthropic representation can be found in Kant’s teaching of a priori cognition forms, which may be different for other thinking beings. The model of an attitude to the Other therefore cannot be based on rational foundations. As a literary ex-ample where these two ways of representing the Other are found, we propose the analysis of The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, which, on the one hand, offers the fictional extrapolation of the colonization of North America and the inevitable contacts with its indigenous population. On the other hand, The Martian Chronicles depicts a powerful and technologically advanced Martian civilization, which disap-pears for some unknown reason, or ceases to contact the settlers. The combination of these two ways of representing the Other allows Bradbury to effectively romanticize and mystify the unique historical experience of colonization, thus modifying the Frontier myth.

The Rogue as an Artist in Patrick deWitt’s "The Sisters Brothers"

This article explores Eli Sisters as a reinvigorated rogue who finds his artistic calling in Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers, published in 2011. With the help of insights from narratology and genre theory, the article provides a textual analysis of Eli’s discourse, perspective and behaviour. Eli casts a critical light on the senseless violence, unbridled greed, ecological devastation, and hyper-masculinity inherent to America’s Frontier myth. As a reinvigorated rogue, he raises questions about what it means to be human and reflects upon morality. With hindsight, the rogue as an artist creates a generically hybrid narrative that parodically imitates and transforms the genre conventions of the Western and the picaresque tale. The article also draws attention to the power that Eli assigns to women in a story about male heroic conquest. These include otherworldly female figures from classical mythology and the brothers’ mother.