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American Sci-Fi
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American Sci-Fi

A special issue of Literature (ISSN 2410-9789).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 July 2023) | Viewed by 4248

Special Issue Editor

Joelle Renstrom

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of General Studies, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
Interests: science fiction and science/technology; cultural and social effects of technology; space exploration; evolution; transhumanism; travelogues; robots and artificial intelligence

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

You are invited to submit a paper for possible inclusion in a Special Issue of Literature (ISSN: 2410-9789) entitled “American Sci-Fi”. Literature is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal on literature and cultural studies published quarterly online by MDPI. The journal welcomes original research articles and reviews. The aim of this Special Issue is to provide a platform for science fiction afficianados to present new research and insights into a ever-evolving genre with increasingly significant socio-cultural impacts. The theme is intentionally broad and open-ended, with potential research areas noted below.

Science fiction has become one of the most popular and influential genres of literature. It affects real-world innovations, approaches, and reactions to scientific and technological advancement (and/or regression). While the genre is prevalent globally, the American science fiction subgenre reflects not only what it means to be human but what it means to be American (or not), to live in America (or not), and to compete and/or collaborate with America. For example, American sci-fi is more likely than Japanese sci-fi or manga to represent robots as evil. Why? How did the “evil robot” narrative develop in American sci-fi, and what narrative counterpart developed in Japan? How have those narratives influenced cultural views on robots?

This Special Issue aims to explore the evolution of American science fiction and the impact it has had and continues to have on readers. The goal is to have a collection of at least 10 articles, and the Special Issue may be printed in book form if this number is reached.

Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Proto-American sci-fi (Hawthorne, Poe, Twain, Melville, Bierce, and more)
  • “Dime novels” of the 1860s–1870s
  • “Pulp” sci-fi of the late 1800s (Burroughs, Merritt, etc.)
  • Space opera
  • American “New Wave” sci-fi (mid 1960s–mid-1980s)
  • Cyberpunk and/or steampunk
  • Modernist influences (and/or challenges or subversions of them)
  • Dystopian/apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic literature
  • Examinations of the “other” (aliens, robots, AI, etc.)
  • Themes/tropes particularly prevalent in—or missing from—American sci-fi
  • Political/military sci-fi
  • Social criticism/commentary (racism, sexism, xenophobia, imperialism, etc.)
  • Human evolution
  • Space exploration/colonization
  • Parallel universes/alternate worlds
  • Relationships between sci-fi and historical/cultural events

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editor (). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editor for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the special issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

  • Abstract submission deadline: 15 December 2022
  • Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 July 2023

Joelle Renstrom
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Literature is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • science fiction
  • sci-fi
  • speculative fiction
  • new wave
  • cyberpunk
  • dystopia
  • robots
  • aliens
  • technology
  • SFF

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  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 276 KiB  
Article
The Specificity of Fantasy and the “Affective Novum”: A Theory of a Core Subset of Fantasy Literature
by Geoff M. Boucher
Literature 2024, 4(2), 101-121; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature4020008 - 17 May 2024
Viewed by 1482
Abstract
This article proposes a new approach to the nature of a core set within fantasy fiction that regards it as a speculative literature of the exploration of subjectivity, one which at its limit conjectures fresh possibilities for the subjective world. To motivate acceptance [...] Read more.
This article proposes a new approach to the nature of a core set within fantasy fiction that regards it as a speculative literature of the exploration of subjectivity, one which at its limit conjectures fresh possibilities for the subjective world. To motivate acceptance of this proposed approach, I begin by surveying the existing state of debate in the critical field. I notice the emergence of widening agreement on the idea that fantasy is a literature of the impossible. I then develop the logical implications of this widening agreement in the critical field, arguing that it entails a representational definition of fantasy literature, which implies a modal approach to the core set that defines this literary order. I suggest that the marvellous mode, the kind of writing which represents the impossible, is a broad class that includes other speculative literatures, and that what differentiates these is the referential world within which the impossible happens. The aim here is to break up monolithic conceptions of the impossible, while pointing to a motivation for developing an understanding of the specificity of a core set of fantasy texts that proceeds by way of contrasts. After explaining why I am extremely skeptical about the definition of science fiction as a “literature of the possible”, I probe descriptions of the difference between fantasy and sci-fi. I propose that whereas some science fiction is a literature of conjectural objectivity, guided by the “cognitive novum”, a significant group of fantasy texts is a literature of speculative subjectivity, guided by an “affective novum”. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue American Sci-Fi)
11 pages, 242 KiB  
Article
Capitalism, Ecosocialism and Reparative Readers in Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World Is Forest
by Sneharika Roy
Literature 2023, 3(4), 446-456; https://doi.org/10.3390/literature3040030 - 12 Nov 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1741
Abstract
Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest emerged as a reaction to the Vietnam War, which ravaged human and nonhuman lifeworlds. Le Guin offers two competing discursive systems through which to interpret human and nonhuman alterity—Terran industrial capitalism, grounded in physical [...] Read more.
Ursula Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest emerged as a reaction to the Vietnam War, which ravaged human and nonhuman lifeworlds. Le Guin offers two competing discursive systems through which to interpret human and nonhuman alterity—Terran industrial capitalism, grounded in physical and symbolic violence, and Athshean ecosocialism, rooted in an ethics of non-violence and forest-centred nominalism. Le Guin appears to suggest that both “readings” of Athshea are locked in an intractable, adversarial logic, typical of the “paranoid” reading practices that Eve Sedgwick would theorise twenty-five years later. In its sensitivity to the spectrum of negative affect covering anticipatory anxiety about forestalling pain, symmetrical suspicion, and fear of humiliation, the novella offers an uncanny prefiguration of paranoid practices. Le Guin suggests that the way out of the paranoid clash of civilisations can be found in two “reparative” reading stances—Selver’s reinterpretation and rearrangement of components of the oppressor’s culture into new, unexpected wholes (hermeneutic reassemblage) and the alien observers’ valorisation of disinterested curiosity over action as a categorical imperative (cerebral equivocity). Le Guin thus seems to offer a reparative poetics avant la lettre. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue American Sci-Fi)
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