38 research outputs found
Suparno Banerjee’s Indian Science Fiction: Patterns, History and Hybridity.
No full textIn Indian Science Fiction: Patterns, History and Hybridity (ISF), Suparno Banerjee highlights the hybridity of Indian sf by evaluating its creation at the intersection of Indian and Western cultures and proceeds to develop this theme along with other patterns more elaborately.Banerjee is an associate professor of English and an established scholar on Indian sf with many scholarly publications to his credit, including his dissertation, Other Tomorrows: Postcoloniality, Science Fiction and India (2010), which studies Indian sf from a postcolonial perspective, arguing that it “intervenes in the history-oriented discourse of postcolonial Anglophone Indian literature and refocuses attention on the nation’s future” by negotiating “the stigma of colonialism to a nation emerging as a new world power” (1)
Crossing the Border: The Depiction of India in Ian McDonald's River of Gods and Cyberabad Days
No full textIn this article I argue that Northern Irish author Ian McDonald's works, River of Gods (2004) and Cyberabad Days (2008), set in India deviate from the prevalent Orientalism of mainstream Western science fiction. Drawing on Shameem Black and Peter Heehs's theories of cross-cultural representation, I claim that despite its flaws the empathetic approach McDonald employs is very appropriate for border-crossing literature in this era of globalization. In this context, I posit that while a deep understanding of the culture is necessary for effective representation, overdependence on "native informants" may actually lead to fallacious expectations.Englis
Accidental Dystopias: Apathy and Happenstance in Critical Dystopian Literature
No full textIt is often the case that dystopian narratives are born out of a reaction against social, national, technological, or environmental trends as observed by the author of the text. In these cases, the dystopia depicted is frequently a warning against the direction towards which the author perceives his/her world to be headed. This is not the case with all dystopia, however, as more recent “critical dystopias,” as described by Tom Moylan in Scraps of the Untainted Sky, seem to take a more Utopian stance in their creation. Rather than depicting the ends to which we are headed, they posit a “critical utopia,” – one which presents a utopia that is not quite perfect and thus simultaneously acts as a criticism of its own genre – where the utopian tendency becomes the uncontrollable force that leads to dystopia (Sargent 9). It is from these types of dystopias that I take the term accidental dystopia, or those worlds which arise from seemingly altruistic, yet misguided, attempts to reshape the world towards the end of an egalitarian, utopic Eden.Englis
Lies and Individuation: External and Internal Authority in the Politics and Anima of Dune
No full textNo abstract prepared.Englis
Achieving Inclusive Fitness through Biological and Cultural Reproduction: Case Studies in English Literature
No full textNo abstract prepared.Englis
Weird Boundaries: Boundary Disruption Thematics in the Works of Algernon Blackwood and Clive Barker
No full textNo abstract prepared.Englis
"This Unfathomable Longing": The Perverse and the Uncanny in Edgar Allan Poe
No full textEdgar Allan Poe is among one of America’s most significant writers of the nineteenth century, and his works remain prevalent in the twenty first century. In this thesis, I explore five of Poe’s most well-known short stories in connection with Sigmund Freud’s theory of the uncanny alongside Poe’s own conception of the perverse. The works which I offer a reading of are “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Man of the Crowd,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Imp of the Perverse.” All of these tales evoke a certain sense of horror and anxiety within the reader. Through the Freudian concept of the uncanny, the impact of intellectual uncertainty, unknowability, and death are further analyzed. Poe offers his idea of perversity within his short stories “The Black Cat” and “The Imp of the Perverse.” With uncanniness and perversion in mind, I offer my readings of these classic stories through the lens of psychoanalytic literary criticism.Englis
Coming out of the Dark: Trauma in R.A. Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy
No full textNo abstract prepared.Englis
Cheat Codes of the Gods: Narrative and Greek Mythology in Video Games
No full textNo abstract prepared.Englis
Weird Boundaries: Boundary Disruption Thematics in the Works of Algernon Blackwood and Clive Barker
No full textNo abstract prepared.Englis
