Feminist Science Fiction

Paper Summary:

This paper proposes a thesis project to focus on how women characters in three science fiction (SF) texts - Liz Williams' "Voivodoi", Paul McAuley's "Sea Change with Monsters" and Chris Lawson's "Unborn Again" - interact and identify with monsters. The paper argues that this interaction and identification with monstrous others can create a deconstructive figure, which transgresses and undermines normative binary oppositions; thus, the stories' heroines -within and because of these interactions - can exercise their roles as liberators. The paper also presents the theoretical and methodological frameworks upon which this thesis will be based.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Statement of the Problem
"Voivodoi"
"Sea Change with Monsters"
"Unborn Again"
Theoretical Framework
Feminism and Science Fiction
SF and the Idea of Sexuality
Fabulation
Representations of Women in Science Fiction
Methodological Framework
Definition of Terms

From the Paper:

"This is an argument about the prospect of feminist SF to portray sexualities, whether alternative or normative. It is an argument that is rooted in the approaches to sexuality and gender studies under the rubric of queer theory. In the 1980s, when the subject of sexuality in feminist SF started to gain critical attention, it was not unusual for literary critics to condemn the dearth in SF of positive representations of alternative sexualities. One might ask whether feminist SF has by tradition been better at envisioning machines and their conjunction than it has been at envisioning bodies and their possible relationships."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Annas, Pamela J. "New World, New Words: Androgyny in Feminist Science Fiction". Science Fiction Studies 5.2 (July 1978).
• Ayres, Susan. "The 'Straight Mind' in Russ' The Female Man ". Science Fiction Sudies 22.1 (March 1995).
• Booker, M. Keith. "Woman on the Edge of a Genre: The Feminist Dystopias of Marge Piercy". Science Fiction Studies 21.3 (November 1994).
• Broderick, Damien. Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Sciene Fiction. 4th edition, New York: Bowker, 1995.
• Butler, Judith. "Critically Queer". In P. du Gay, J. Evans, and P. Redman, Identity: A Reader. London: Sage Publications, 2000.

More papers on Feminist Science Fiction:

• Research Paper # 396 : "Cyborgs and Feminist Writers"
• Analytical Essay # 52702 : "Pamela Sargent's "Women of Wonder"
• Analytical Essay # 30024 : "The Left Hand of Darkness"

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