E438: Science Fictionin

American LiteratureBlake Earle

What is Science Fiction?

Science fiction is hard to define because it is always shifting and includes many different subgenres.

Literature that fits into Science Fiction include such elements as:

Time-travel, Space-travel, Futuristic settings, Other-world characters, Advanced Technology, Paranormal abilities, and Different Political and Social Systems

Science Fiction Defined:

H. Bruce Franklin in his essay “Science Fiction: The Early History”:

“Science fiction's domain is the possible. Its territory ranges from the present Earth we know out to the limits of the possible universes that the human imagination can project, whether in the past, present, future, or alternative time-space continuums. Therefore science fiction is the only literature capable of exploring the macrohistory of our species, and of placing our history, and even our daily lives, in a cosmic context.”

The History of Science Fiction

Early Science Fiction

“But it was the Gothic mode that Mary Shelly used for what Brian Aldiss, and a number of later commentatora, identified as the first true science fiction novel, Frankenstein (1818).” (Sawyer)

Early Science Fiction

“Wells took the paranoid stories of German invasion that had become popular in the wake of German reunification and the Franco-Prussian War and turned them into the first significant novel of alien invasion (War of the Worlds, 1898).” (Sawyer)

World War I

“The first World War marked a change in the course of Science Fiction….a bleak mood fed into the fiction of the day.” (Sawyer)

World War II

“The representations of technology, science, and media in American science fiction grew darker in the wake of the Second World War.” (Jenkins)

Post-War Science Fiction

1984

(1949)Swastika Night

(1937)

The Man in the High Castle

(1962)

Modern Science Fiction

2001: A Space Odyssey

(1968)Slaughterhouse Five

(1969)

Science Fiction and Pop-Culture

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope(1977)

Jurassic Park

(1990)

Science Fiction in the Canon

A genre of limitless possibilityAllows authors to make social

commentary by proposing ideas of the future

Accessible to most audiencesLiterary value derived from unique ideas

Works Cited

Franklin, Bruce H. "Science Fiction: The Early History." Rutgers-Newark: The State University of New Jersey. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. <http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf/sfhist.html>.

Gilks, Marg, Paula Fleming, and Moria Allen. "Science Fiction: The Literature of Ideas." Welcome to Writing-World.com! The Writer. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. <http://www.writing-world.com/sf/sf.shtml>.

Jenkins, Henry. "Media and Imagination: A Short History of American Science Fiction." MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/papers/jenkins_mi.html>.

Sawyer, Andy, and Peter Wright. Teaching Science Fiction. Houndmills, Basingstoke Hampshire: Palgrave, 2011. Print.