1,720,987 research outputs found
The Coronavirus Pandemic, Science Fiction, and the Contingent Nature of Roads
Full text linkIn this blog post Jeremy Withers, author of Futuristic Cars and Space Bicycles, considers the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on our urban environments, in relation to science fiction’s frequent focus on futuristic and post-apocalyptic settings.This blog is published as Withers, Jeremy., “The Coronavirus Pandemic, Science Fiction, and the Contingent Nature of Roads,” Liverpool University Press Blog (July 29, 2020). https://liverpooluniversitypress.blog/2020/07/29 . Posted with permission
Automobility Without Automobiles in Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140
Full text linkThis essay argues that Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140 understands something fundamental but far from obvious about automobility: it is an ideology that over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has grown so vast, complex, and multi-faceted that it encompasses much more than just materially existing cars. The novel provocatively (but menacingly) shows that automobility is so entangled with and bolstered by other ideologies such as capitalism and hegemonic masculinity that automobility can even survive the disappearance of cars due to catastrophic climate change. Further, this article addresses how some female characters in the novel use walking and airships to challenge the unpalatable capitalist and masculinist values that threaten to sponsor present and future modes of transportation.This accepted article is published as Withers, Jeremy., “Automobility Without Automobiles in Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140,” Science Fiction Studies, 2022, 49(3); 443-458. https://doi.org/10.1353/sfs.2022.0045. Posted with permission
‘Indiscriminate and universal destruction’? Warfare and nature in H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds
Full text linkThis article focuses on H. G. Wells’s portrayal in The War of the Worlds (1898) of the adverse environmental effects of warfare. It also analyses a second provocative way in which the novel depicts human wars: as insignificant when viewed from the perspective of species not directly affected by our military conflicts. This article concludes by examining how the novel further attacks anthropocentrism by depicting the ecologically sophisticated idea that military violence might even be good for some forms of nonhuman life. In short, we examine The War of the Worlds as a work demonstrating Wells’s consciousness that war, an event seemingly unique to humans, is always enmeshed in the living environment that surrounds it.This article is published as Withers, Jeremy., Tyrrell, Brenda “‘Indiscriminate and Universal Destruction’? Warfare and Nature in H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds,” The Wellsian: The Journal of the H. G. Wells Society 43 (2020): 56-77 http://hgwellssociety.com/wellsian/. Posted with permission
Book Review: Review of Daryl Gregory, The Album of Dr. Moreau ; J. S. Barnes, The City of Dr Moreau ; The Daughter of Doctor Moreau
No full textH. G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) has in recent years been enjoying a cultural moment. Since 2021, three different literary continuations of Wells’s work written by three different authors have appeared: The Album of Dr. Moreau (2021) by Daryl Gregory, The City of Dr Moreau (2021) by J. S. Barnes, and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau (2022) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. These continuations take the form of prequels, sequels, and alternative histories to the events depicted in Wells’s original novel. Of course, this surge of interest is not totally surprising given that, since his arrival on the British literary scene in the 1890s, Wells has never disappeared from the larger cultural landscape. In particular, his science fictional masterpieces that he wrote early in his career (and that include The Island of Doctor Moreau) have been blessed with an impressive longevity. These works have never gone out of print, and countless writers, editors, filmmakers, and musicians have returned to them as a perennial source of stimulation and authority.This book review is published as Withers, Jeremy., Daryl Gregory, The Album of Dr. Moreau (New York: Tordotcom, 2021); J. S. Barnes, The City
of Dr Moreau (London: Titan, 2021); Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau (New York: Del Rey, 2022). The Wellsian. 46 (2023); 84-86. http://hgwellssociety.com/wellsian/. Posted with permission
Disrupting the Nascent Paradigm of Urban Automobility in H. G. Wells’s The Sleeper Awakes
Full text linkDespite the gloomy nature of H. G. Wells’s The Sleeper Awakes, this essay argues that adjacent to the novel’s dystopian displays of oppressive social stratification and technologies of thought-control readers encounter utopian images too. More specifically, this article argues that Wells provides in this novel an early and important vision of a sprawling megacity that has adopted more utopian forms of mobility and transportation, forms that have allowed it to flourish without embracing automobility. In place of motor cars, people in The Sleeper Awakes traverse the space of the city by means of an intraurban transit system that the novel shows to be more egalitarian and collectivist, as well as less polluting, than the automobiles that were emerging at that time.This article is published as Withers, Jeremy.,“Disrupting the Nascent Paradigm of Urban Automobility in H. G. Wells’s The Sleeper Awakes,” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 2023, 34(1);115-138. https://www.fantastic-arts.org/jfa/jfa-34-1/ . Posted with permission
The War of the Wheels: H.G. Wells and the Bicycle
No full textAmid apocalyptic invasions and time travel, one common machine continually appears in H. G. Wells’s works: the bicycle. From his scientific romances and social comedies, to utopias, futurological speculations, and letters, Wells’s texts abound with bicycles. In The War of the Wheels, Withers examines this mode of transportation as both something that played a significant role in Wells’s personal life and as a literary device for creating elaborate characters and complex themes.Withers traces Wells’s ambivalent relationship with the bicycle throughout his writing. While he celebrated it as a singular and astonishing piece of technology, and continued to do so long after his contemporaries abandoned their enthusiasm for the bicycle, he was not an unwavering promoter of this machine. Wells acknowledged the complex nature of cycling, its contribution to a growing dependence on and fetishization of technology, and its role in humanity’s increasing sense of superiority. Moving into the twenty-first century, Withers reflects on how the works of H. G. Wells can serve as a valuable locus for thinking through many of our current issues and problems related to transportation, mobility, and sustainability.This is the table of contents and introduction of a Withers, Jeremy. The War of the Wheels: HG Wells and the Bicycle. Syracuse University Press, 2017. Posted with permission.</p
Bicycles Across the Galaxy: Attacking Automobility in 1950s Science Fiction
Full text linkThis essay focuses on several works of science fiction from the 1950s that function as counter-narratives to the hegemony of the automobile during this decade and to the accompanying dismissive perceptions of the bicycle. In its analysis of a novel by Robert A. Heinlein (The Rolling Stones, 1952), a novella by Poul Anderson (“A Bicycle Built for Brew,” 1958), and a short story by Avram Davidson (“Or All the Seas with Oysters,” 1958), it asserts that some of the leading figures in Golden Age sf were not content to relegate bicycles to the status of a technological obsolescence fit only for children. Instead, they chose to portray bicycles as useful, potent, and agentic—images that counter the prevailing ideology of “automobility” that was crystallizing with such durability in postwar America.This article is published as Withers, Jeremy. "Bicycles Across the Galaxy: Attacking Automobility in 1950s Science Fiction." Science Fiction Studies 44, no. 3 (2017): 417-436. doi: 10.5621/sciefictstud.44.3.0417. Posted with permission.</p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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