Queer universes : sexualities in science fiction / edited by Wendy Gay Pearson, Veronica Hollinger, and Joan Gordon.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Pearson, Wendy G.

Hollinger, Veronica.

Gordon, Joan, 1947-

Series:

Liverpool science fiction texts and studies ; 37.

Liverpool science fiction texts and studies ; [37]

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science fiction--History and criticism.

Science fiction.

Queer theory.

Homosexuality and literature.

Gay people in literature.

Physical Description:

xii, 285 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2008.

Summary:

Contestations over the meaning and practice of sexuality have become increasingly central to cultural self-definition and to critical debates over issues of identity, citizenship, and the definition of humanity itself. Some religious authorities today are virulently homophobic, even declaring lesbians anti-human, while public acceptance of some non-normative sexualities is increasing in many places, as witnessed by such changes as the legalization of same-sex marriage. It is hardly surprising that science fiction, in turn, takes up the task of imagining a diverse range of queer and not-so-queer futures. The essays in Queer Universes investigate both contemporary and historical practices of constructing sexualities and genders in science fiction literature. While individual essays examine many different depictions of sexuality in sf and its relation to race, gender, class and species, all are informed by some aspect of queer theory and its critique of binary sexual definitions and of sexual normativity.

Queer Universes opens with Wendy Gay Pearson's award-winning essay on reading sf queerly and goes on to include discussions about 'sextrapolation' in New Wave science fiction, 'stray penetration' in William Gibson's cyberpunk fiction, the queering of nature in ecofeminist science fiction, perverse couplings in Quebecois sf and in science fiction erotica, the radical challenges posed to more conventional science fiction in the work of important writers such as Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Joanna Russ, and the utopian-inflected futurity of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. In addition, Queer Universes offers an interview with writer and editor Nalo Hopkinson and a conversation about queer lives and queer fictions by authors Nicola Griffith and Kelley Eskridge.

Contents:

Introduction: Queer Universes / Wendy Gay Pearson, Veronica Hollinger, Joan Gordon 1

Part I Queering the Scene

Alien Cryptographies: The View from Queer / Wendy Gay Pearson 14

War Machine, Time Machine / Nicola Griffith, Kelley Eskridge 39

Part II Un/Doing History

Sextrapolation in New Wave Science Fiction / Rob Latham 52

Towards a Queer Genealogy of SF / Wendy Gay Pearson 72

Sexuality and the Statistical Imaginary in Samuel R. Delany's / Trouble on Triton, Guy Davidson 101

Stray Penetration and Heteronormative Systems Crash: Queering Gibson / Graham J. Murphy 121

Part III Disordering Desires

'Something Like a Fiction': Speculative Intersections of Sexuality and Technology / Veronica Hollinger 140

'And How Many Souls Do You Have?': Technologies of Perverse Desire and Queer Sex in Science Fiction Erotica / Patricia Melzer 161

BDSMSF (QF): Sadomasochistic Readings of Quebecois Women's Science Fiction / Sylvie Berard 180

Part IV Embodying New Words

'Happy That It's Here': An Interview with Nalo Hopkinson / Nancy Johnston 200

Queering Nature: Close Encounters with the Alien in Ecofeminist Science Fiction / Helen Merrick 216

Queering the Coming Race? A Utopian Historical Imperative / De Witt Douglas Kilgore 233.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [252]-271) and index.

ISBN:

9781846311352

1846311357

OCLC:

182736124