Early science fiction has often been associated almost exclusively with Northern industrialized nations. In this groundbreaking exploration of the science fiction written in Latin America prior to ...1920, Rachel Haywood Ferreira argues that science fiction has always been a global genre. She traces how and why the genre quickly reached Latin America and analyzes how writers in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico adapted science fiction to reflect their own realities. Among the texts discussed are one of the first defenses of Darwinism in Latin America, a tale of a time-traveling history book, and a Latin American Frankenstein. Latin American science fiction writers have long been active participants in the sf literary tradition, expanding the limits of the genre and deepening our perception of the role of science and technology in the Latin American imagination. The book includes a chronological bibliography of science fiction published from 1775 to 1920 in all Latin American countries.
The spread of novels Mcmurran, Mary Helen
2010., 20090824, 2009, 2009-08-24, Volume:
23
eBook
Fiction has always been in a state of transformation and circulation: how does this history of mobility inform the emergence of the novel? The Spread of Novels explores the active movements of ...English and French fiction in the eighteenth century and argues that the new literary form of the novel was the result of a shift in translation. Demonstrating that translation was both the cause and means by which the novel attained success, Mary Helen McMurran shows how this period was a watershed in translation history, signaling the end of a premodern system of translation and the advent of modern literary exchange.
In this volume, Boldrini examines "heterobiography"-the first-person fictional account of a historic life. Boldrini shows that this mode is widely employed to reflect critically on the historical and ...philosophical understanding of the human; on individual identity; and on the power relationships that define the subject. In such texts, the grammatical first person becomes the site of an encounter, a stage where the relationships between historical, fictional and authorial subjectivities are played out and explored in the 'double I' of author and narrating historical character, of fictional narrator and historical person. Boldrini considers the ethical implications of assuming another's first-person voice, and the fraught issue of authorial responsibility. Constructions of the body are examined in relation to the material evidence of the subject's existence. Texts studied include Malouf's An Imaginary Life, Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang, Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, Adair's The Death of the Author, Banti's Artemisia, Vázquez Montalbán's Autobiografía del general Franco. Also discussed, among others: Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian, Tabucchi's The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa, Giménez-Bartlett's Una habitación ajena (A Room of Someone Else's).
Described as the most widely read and influential serious writer of the twentieth century, George Orwell remains relevant in our own era of contested media. He continues to attract a large ...readership. This book is about Orwell’s post-war cultural moment c. 1948. Taking his Diaries of the time as inspiration, together with his famous final novel, 1984 (published 1949), and treating them as contiguous texts, Brian May considers the gaps, equivocations, and contradictions in Orwell's message and asks what Orwell would have written next. But 1948 is more than a work of literary criticism: rather, it balances critical discussion with creative intervention, being one-half literary-critical commentary, and one-half fictional departure – a novella titled “From the Archives of Oceania,” which quotes, parodies and pastiches Orwell's Diaries, offering a possible prequel. Together these elements offer a resource for the reader to interrogate anew such difficult issues as Orwell's sexism and anti-Semitism; to explore the tensions between various intertwining strands of thought that cast Orwell as both realist and idealist, Puritan and individualist; and to better understand Orwell's curious affection for the natural world. 1948 will appeal to all readers and critics of Orwell, but also to students of dystopian fiction, "revisionary" fiction and "reception study," which highlights the audience’s contribution to an artwork's meaning.
InSpeculative Blackness, André M. Carrington analyzes the highly racialized genre of speculative fiction-including science fiction, fantasy, and utopian works, along with their fan cultures-to ...illustrate the relationship between genre conventions in media and the meanings ascribed to blackness in the popular imagination.
Carrington's argument about authorship, fandom, and race in a genre that has been both marginalized and celebrated offers a black perspective on iconic works of science fiction. He examines the career of actor Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed the character Uhura in the originalStar Trektelevision series and later became a recruiter for NASA, and the spin-off seriesStar Trek: Deep Space Nine, set on a space station commanded by a black captain. He recovers a pivotal but overlooked moment in 1950s science fiction fandom in which readers and writers of fanzines confronted issues of race by dealing with a fictitious black fan writer and questioning the relevance of race to his ostensible contributions to the 'zines. Carrington mines the productions of Marvel comics and the black-owned comics publisher Milestone Media, particularly the representations of black sexuality in its flagship title,Icon. He also interrogates online fan fiction about black British women inBuffy the Vampire Slayerand the Harry Potter series.Throughout this nuanced analysis, Carrington theorizes the relationship between race and genre in cultural production, revealing new understandings of the significance of blackness in twentieth-century American literature and culture.
