Ethical Futures and Global Science Fiction (eBook)

Preface 6
Acknowledgements 10
Praise for Ethical Futures and Global Science Fiction 11
Contents 12
Notes on Contributors 15
Part I: Ethics and the Other 19
Chapter 1: Science Fiction’s Ethical Modes: Totality and Infinity in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy and Yevgeny Zamyatin’s ?? (We) 20
Introduction 20
Totality and Ethics 21
Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy 22
Infinity and the Face-to-Face Encounter 28
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s ?? 29
Science Fiction and the Unenglobable Literary Space 35
Conclusion 38
Works Cited 42
Chapter 2: Inversion and Prolepsis: Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Feminist Utopian Strategies 45
Hossain’s Life and Works 47
Hossain’s Rhetorical Strategies in Sultana’s Dream and ??????? 49
Hossain’s Dual Vision of Feminist Ethics 57
Works Cited 62
Chapter 3: Better Societies for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: Vegetarianism and the Utopian Tradition 64
Introduction 64
Formative Utopias 66
Nineteenth-Century Utopias 68
H. G. Wells 71
Feminist and Critical Utopias 75
Ecological Utopias 79
Conclusion 81
Works Cited 86
Part II: Environmental Ethics 89
Chapter 4: Eutopia, Dystopia and Climate Change 90
Introduction 90
Utopia, Eutopia and Dystopia 91
An Ideal Typology of Contemporary Climate Fiction 94
Some Preliminary Generalisations 96
Climate Eutopias: Robinson, Fleck, Atwood 99
Works Cited 107
Chapter 5: Evolving a New, Ecological Posthumanism: An Ecocritical Comparison of Michel Houellebecq’s Les Particules élémentaires and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy 111
Introduction 111
Defining an Ecological Posthumanism 112
A Transhumanist Perspective of Michel Houellebecq’s Les Particules élémentaires 116
Ecological Posthumanism in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy 121
The Role of Liminality in Our Ecological Future 126
Works Cited 128
Chapter 6: The Perverse Utopianism of Willed Human Extinction: Writing Extinction in Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem (??) 131
Introduction 131
The Utopian-Dystopian Dialectic in the Three-Body Problem 132
The Utopian Legacy: Science Fiction and Socialist Realism 136
Utopian Reason and Its Nihilistic Fate 138
Allegorising Extinction and the End of Science Fiction 142
Conclusion: Utopia Must Die 146
Works Cited 149
Chapter 7: Ecopocalyptic Visions in Haitian and Mexican Landscapes of Exploitation 153
Introduction 153
Mythic Time, Ecopocalypse, and Visions of Hope 157
Crisis of Representation 161
Ecopocalypse and Social Degradation 166
Bridge the Human/Nature Divide 168
Conclusion 169
Works Cited 173
Part III: Postcolonial Ethics 175
Chapter 8: Postcolonial Science Fiction and the Ethics of Empire 176
Introduction 176
Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis 181
Slavery 184
Ethics of Cloning and Interbreeding 186
Is Oankali Culture Ethical? 187
Transcultural Ethics 191
Conclusion 194
Works Cited 195
Chapter 9: The Postcolonial Cyborg in Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome 197
Introduction 197
The Calcutta Chromosome as Postcolonial Science Fiction 201
Science Fiction and Postcolonial Ethics 205
When Western Science Met the Colonised 206
Silence Is Power 210
The Postcolonial Cyborg 212
Conclusion 215
Works Cited 217
Chapter 10: Wagering the Future: Split Collectives and Decolonial Praxis in Assia Djebar’s Ombre sultane and Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber 220
Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism and African Futurism 222
Dependency and Splitting 225
Care as Consensus: Split Collectives 232
Concluding Remarks 238
Works Cited 240
Part IV: Ethics and Global Politics 242
Chapter 11: Rewriting France’s Future: From Louis-Sébastien Mercier’s Pre-Revolutionary Projections to Michel Houellebecq’s Islamic Agendas via Secular State Ethics 243
Introduction 243
Louis-Sébastien Mercier’s Pre-revolutionary Projections 245
City of Light: City of Dark 247
French Secular State Ethics 250
Michel Houellebecq’s Islamic Agendas 254
Conclusion 262
Works Cited 265
Chapter 12: The Appearance of Dystopian Fiction in Macedonia and its Ethical Concerns 269
The Political Circumstances and Settings of the Novels 271
The Rulers’ Concealment of the Past and the Protagonists’ Nostalgia 276
Wars and Dehumanisation 282
Ambiguous Visions of the Future 284
Works Cited 288
Chapter 13: Cairo in 2015 and in 2023: The Dreadful Fates of the Egyptian Capital in Jamil Nasir’s Tower of Dreams and Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s Utopia 290
Parallel Futures, or Parallels in the Future? 292
Two Rare Science Fiction Imaginings of Cairo 292
Orient of the Past, Orient of the Future: A Well of Images 294
Predator and Prey 295
Literary Fiction, Revealer of Urban Transformations 295
Urban Dysfunction 295
Vertical Segregation/Horizontal Segregation 298
Dystopias: The Reinvention of Worlds 299
Grand Projects and Black Clouds 299
The New Economic and Social Reality 300
Geopolitics of the Middle East: A World of Chaos and Dependence on the West 302
Cairo, an Eschatological City: Earthquakes and Revolutions 303
Conclusion 304
Works Cited 307
Chapter 14: Post-Capitalist Futures: A Report on Imagination 309
The Return of Realism? 311
Cli-Fi and Crisis 312
Post-Capitalism: Theory and Practice 314
Reading (Post-)Capitalist Possibilities 317
The Politics of Time (Travel) 320
Looking Backward at Looking Backward 321
Utopia as Redemptive (Class) Struggle 324
Why Utopia Is So Hard 326
Why Utopia Is So Necessary 328
Works Cited 330
Index 334