As someone who isn’t a Marxist scholar, nor has a background in literary criticism, this was a challenging read. Having a dictionary to hand often failed to identify a word’s meaning in the context of philosophical terminology (dialectical, dialectical materialism, dialectical relationship, dialectical perspective…).
So many of these essays went over my head, but I enjoyed the challenge. I particularly valued the essays that placed writing in the context of their time, giving me a deeper understanding of the imagery and messages.
Anamorphic Estrangements of Science Fiction, Matthew Beaumont ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The anamorphosis in Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors demonstrates that reality can be altered through changes in our cultural perceptions.
Posits that the novum of SF acts anamorphically, estranging us from our reality and offering a dialectical perspective on opposing realities.
Spectacle, Technology and Colonialism in SF Cinema, John Rieder ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Argues that special effects in SF cinema have replaced the cognitive exploration of the speculative with overpowering sensory overload — absorption over Brechtian theatre.
The Urban Question in New Wave SF, Rob Latham ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The economic shocks of the 70s lead to collapse, defunding, and waves of privatisation. New wave urban dystopias and technocratic monumentalism were a reaction to the crisis of capitalist urbanism, characterised by the extreme es of development and decay, progress and poverty.
Utopian Art and Art in Utopia in The Dispossessed and Blue Mars, William J Burling ⭐⭐⭐
Examines music in the Dispossessed and argues that utopian art needs to abandon the forms dictated under capitalism’s means of production — our artistic and aesthetic assumptions are dictated by art’s trade value and ownership, our enjoyment is prescribed by societal ideologies.
Dense and difficult to parse.
The Singularity is Here, Steven Shiviro ⭐⭐⭐
Analyses Accelerando as a melioristic post-scarcity techno utopia that remains anchored by the capitalist economics of computation. Argues that our singularity is already here, it was born when capital became divorced from reality - the gold standard, derivatives, monetarism.
Ken Macleod’s Permanent Revolution: Utopian Possible Worlds, History and the Augenblick in the Fall Revolution Quartet, Phillip Wegner ⭐⭐⭐
A great overview of the fall quartet and its diversity of utopias. The message of the essay passed me by, but it was enjoyable.
Utopia and Science Fiction Revisited, Andrew Milner ⭐⭐⭐
An interesting discussion on the definition of genre and its boundaries with general literature.
Cognition as Ideology: A Dialectic of SF Theory, China Miéville ⭐⭐⭐
Exploration of the boundary between SF and fantasy. This is academic in its language, but I found Miéville’s analysis of the literature of genre definition enlightening.
Marxism, Cinema and Some Dialectics of Science Fiction and Film Noir, Carl Freedman ⭐⭐
Exploring the dialectical tension in Marxism through the antithetical elements of the genres of SF and noir. Seems tenuous.
Species and Species-being: Alienated Subjectivity and the Commodification of Animals, Sherryl Vint ⭐⭐
Argues that animal labour’s contribution to capital accumulation should be recognised as an exploitation of sentients, drawing parallels with the underpeople of Norstrillia.
Weimar SF Film Criticism During the Stabilisation Period, Iris Luppa ⭐
An essay describing an essay on Metropolis - might as well read the original. Then analyses the obscure Frau im Monday. Dnf
Towards A Revolutionary Science Fiction: Althusser’s Critique Of Historicity, Darren Jorgensen ⭐
Far over my head. Dnf
