Pearson starts by describing gay and lesbian activist groups arguing for the importance of lesbian and gay characters on SF shows - as some proof/representation that indeed the future means both the existence of and acceptance of these identities. Pearson argues that it is this particular representation that is desired by SF viewers, 'the vision of a future in which queerness is neither hidden nor revealed as difference, but is simply there' (15). She wants to argue that gay characters might not 'queer' an SF text, but indeed, queering of such a text might require something altogether different. Specifically, she points to the notion that it would take a move beyond 'inclusion' to a more radical shift in the show to question current sex/gender systems and socio-cultural institutions.
I think it is this understanding of queer as questioning the foundations and discourses by which subjects are shaped in a society that also allows her to bring SF and queer together, seeing them both as having the ability to create different (and potentially radical) foundations. She suggests that SF and queer theory in some ways occupy similar theoretical space: 'Queer, with its denaturalization of master narratives and its movement towards subcultural and subaltern understandings of texts, operates, by analogy, on some of the same levels as sf' (18). She sees in SF the potential to write queer subjects, given the genre's resistance to realism, and the ensuing risk of being at the service of 'common sense.' Further, she describes a long history in SF (beginning with Shelley) of questioning foundational systems of thought. Taking her cue from Earl Jackson, Pearson argues that in SF, there is rejection of the Cartesian subject and instead insistence 'that the subject is the effect of the system' (18).
Pearson first reads Campbell's 'Who Goes There?' (1938) thinking through the cultural anxieties about the invisibility of the homosexual during the era of WWII. The need to reassert heterosexual values was accompanied by intense demonization in films and stories, SF genre included, of the Other. Particularly anxiety surrounded how to identify the alien, the queer, from the rest. Pearson thus claims that Campbell's story 'serves as a near perfect example of the way in which the story of the alien who passes as human derives from the precise confluence of anxieties that serve to claim, at the same time, that homosexuality is always written on the body and that it is always able to pass' (21).
Next, Pearson turns to thinking about what she calls the other half of the story. While Campbell's story is concerned with 'passing,' Pearson now wants to think about that which remains invisible and unrecognized, what she calls a 'queer text.' I think in this instance she is trying to differentiate between her queer reading of Campbell's story and the potential to recuperate and recognize texts as queer. To think through this idea she turns to Reamy's 'Under the Hollywood Sign' (1975), a story which she believes can undergo a queer re-reading, clarified as not just being concerned with the text, but also 'of the heteronormative reading protocols that have constrained earlier readings' (28). She argues that this story is an unfaithful reproduction of the 'trope of the invisible alien' (28). Particularly, the story, in Pearson's reading, is concerned with the visibile invisibility - the fact that the aliens in the story are only visible to the narrator. Pearson argues that the story is concerned with three related issues: the question of visibility, the sexual identity of the narrator, and the identity of the aliens (29). However, the shifting and coded nature of these themes, argues Pearson, has meant that can be read as not being queer enough. Pearson argues that the story intervenes into the invisibility trope as expressed in Campbell's story in part because of this ambiguity, particularly with reference to the aliens' identities. Pearson explains, 'they fail to serve as warnings of the invisible "passing" Other.' The same can be said for the ambiguity around the narrator's sexuality through expressing a universal homosexual desire in the story and further suggesting that this alone does and cannot account for the narrator's desire.
Thus, Pearson reads Reamy's text as 'becoming queer,' once accessible only through hidden information, cryptography, but now containing markers that the 'modern subject' cannot avoid. She suggests that this incurs a shift from cryptography to cartography. Pearson argues for the queerness of the subject/text as 'an effect of a system that can be variously understood, depending on one's worldview' (33). This comes back to her earlier assertion that SF was a ripe arena for queer re-readings precisely because of its focus on the system over the individual. Being concerned with systems, the SF genre brings to the fore the importance of the system in the production of subjectivity. Thus, she concludes that the story's queer quality is less about the character being gay, and more 'in the way the text itself calls into question the very system which effects the narrator as a gay subject' (33).
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Pearson, Hollinger, Gordon, Introduction: Queer Universes (2008)
In the introduction to this collection of writing on queer SF, they make the claim that if queer theory is indeed about 'imagining a world in which all lives are livable, we understand queer theory as being both utopian and science fictional, in the sense of imagining a future that opens out, rather than forecloses, possibilities for becoming real, for mattering in the world' (5). They basically situate the collection as one of the first attempts to bring together a comprehensive book of approaches to SF through the lens of sexuality - arguing that while gender has been an important lens, sexuality has not been as influential/widespread as an approach.
Sargisson, Contemporary Feminist Utopianism (i) (1996)
Introduction & Part 1 (Chapters 1 & 2)
Sargisson sets out her discussion by explaining that she is using 'utopianism' following Sargent (1994), Levitas (1990), and Bloch (1986) , as an umbrella term to refer to social dreaming, a desire for a better way of being, or as an impulse. She first sets out to challenge the notion of utopia=perfection, arguing that a survey of texts suggests no such conclusion. She explains that the central argument of the book is about critiquing perfection as equalling closure and sees in utopianism being wrapped up in the question of how meaning is constructed (3). In other words, I think she is arguing that in debates over utopia, what is also being contested are more theoretical desires to make meaning closed, to settle the meaning of a concept, idea, etc.
In the first chapter, Sargisson critiques form-based and content-based approaches to utopianism. Drawing on the work of Bloch and Levitas, Sargisson argues that form-based approaches are too limiting, as utopianism is expressed in many forms. She points to the disciplinary desires inherent in these form-based definitions, as well as cultural imperialism. Moving on to thinking about utopianism through content definitions, Sargisson similarly expresses unease about the limitations of such an approach. One of her continual arguments is that 'A restrictive and narrow approach to utopianism produces a restricted (restrictive) and narrow definition, understanding or concept. The act(ivity) of conceptualization thereby becomes an exclusionary one' (19). Like many other theorists she is keen to expand the notion of utopianism as perfection and sees this understanding as common in content-based approaches. Turning to feminist utopias, she argues that if the working definition of utopianism is perfection, then 'many feminist utopias do not "fit" into a definition which relies on finality of end' (20). She thus uses feminist utopias to push for an expansion of the definition. However, she also traces back through historical utopias, such as More's Utopia, to argue that a characteristic of utopia is their engagement with contemporary debates. This characteristic Sargisson argues, results not in a closed text, 'but rather one that struggles to maintain an open end (or mind) by inhabiting the spaces and tensions between two ideals' (27). Sargisson thus argues that utopianism has always been more than a blueprint for a perfect future through connecting utopian texts to the contradictions and politics of their contemporary times. Utopias 'have a critical edge in that they challenge the political present' (28).
Sargisson then turns to feminist utopias to argue for the limitations of focusing on how the content of these utopias somehow makes them different from the male/mainstream texts. She argues that attempts to define feminist utopias such as Pearson's (1981) and Gearhart's (1984) potentially lead to notions of feminist utopias as having a binary relationship to the present, as mere reversals of the status quo. Further, she pushes to suggest that such definitions have the effect of homogenizing and defining feminism itself. Again, her main concern is with how these definitions close off understandings of feminism and utopianism.
In the second chapter, Sargisson focuses on function-based approaches to utopianism and judges these approaches as superior to the previous two. She argues that theorists that focus on the function of utopia tend to suggest that it is 'transformative, subversive or oppositional, or to have some other radical or political function' (47). Sargisson takes issue however with the definition of 'opposition' in these accounts. Looking at Mannheim (1936), she argues for the too simplistic dualism assumed between ideology and utopia. For Mannheim (1936) the ideological is what retains order, while the utopic destroys that order. Sargisson refutes this notion of utopia mostly due to the requirement that it must achieve change, which Sargisson suggests brings utopia too close to revolution. Sargisson argues that while utopia 'depends on and results from dissatisfaction with the present,' it does not 'comprise a coherent body in dialectical opposition with the dominant ideology' (49). From these socialist oppositional approaches to utopianism, Sargisson moves to consider a feminist oppositional model which she alligns herself with and defines as such: 'The function of utopianism, thus approached, is not to blueprint and enclose the future but to explore alternative states of being to those presently existing - to stretch and expand our understanding of the possible, thus making a multiplicity of radically different futures not only desirable but also conceivable' (52). As for the 'time' of utopia, Sargisson argues that utopianism is about anticipating 'different "nows"' (52) and thus operates in the political present and works as 'a paradigm shift in consciousness' (52). In other words, utopianism is moved from a 'speculative (or concrete) future to a no place/good place that is an alternative reading of the present' (52). In this conceptualization, utopianism sounds more like a mode of possibility...
Sargisson then turns to Moylan and 'critical utopias.' Unlike Mannheim, Moylan allows for a multiplicity of opposition (his conception of the historic bloc). Further, he also stresses process and even critiques the concept of opposition as dialectical to ideology. 'Critical opposition is not the classical binary tradition but opposes the existing space of opposition; its funciton is not to provide an alternative but to deny that existing options are the only ones' (55). However, she is concerned with his tentative suggestion of a unity between oppositional forces but she does like how he attempts to explain precisely why utopias do not seem to be about perfection after all.
She therefore privileges function as an approach to utopianism and will go on to argue for utopianism as a place to think feminist political theory. She ends the chapter by using utopianism as a means to creating a new space to conceptualize past, present, future. Sargisson thus stresses 'the paradigmatic nature of the transformative effect of utopian thought: if utopian thought can change the shape and scope of our consciousness then the unthinkable can be thought and desired' (59).
Sargisson sets out her discussion by explaining that she is using 'utopianism' following Sargent (1994), Levitas (1990), and Bloch (1986) , as an umbrella term to refer to social dreaming, a desire for a better way of being, or as an impulse. She first sets out to challenge the notion of utopia=perfection, arguing that a survey of texts suggests no such conclusion. She explains that the central argument of the book is about critiquing perfection as equalling closure and sees in utopianism being wrapped up in the question of how meaning is constructed (3). In other words, I think she is arguing that in debates over utopia, what is also being contested are more theoretical desires to make meaning closed, to settle the meaning of a concept, idea, etc.
In the first chapter, Sargisson critiques form-based and content-based approaches to utopianism. Drawing on the work of Bloch and Levitas, Sargisson argues that form-based approaches are too limiting, as utopianism is expressed in many forms. She points to the disciplinary desires inherent in these form-based definitions, as well as cultural imperialism. Moving on to thinking about utopianism through content definitions, Sargisson similarly expresses unease about the limitations of such an approach. One of her continual arguments is that 'A restrictive and narrow approach to utopianism produces a restricted (restrictive) and narrow definition, understanding or concept. The act(ivity) of conceptualization thereby becomes an exclusionary one' (19). Like many other theorists she is keen to expand the notion of utopianism as perfection and sees this understanding as common in content-based approaches. Turning to feminist utopias, she argues that if the working definition of utopianism is perfection, then 'many feminist utopias do not "fit" into a definition which relies on finality of end' (20). She thus uses feminist utopias to push for an expansion of the definition. However, she also traces back through historical utopias, such as More's Utopia, to argue that a characteristic of utopia is their engagement with contemporary debates. This characteristic Sargisson argues, results not in a closed text, 'but rather one that struggles to maintain an open end (or mind) by inhabiting the spaces and tensions between two ideals' (27). Sargisson thus argues that utopianism has always been more than a blueprint for a perfect future through connecting utopian texts to the contradictions and politics of their contemporary times. Utopias 'have a critical edge in that they challenge the political present' (28).
Sargisson then turns to feminist utopias to argue for the limitations of focusing on how the content of these utopias somehow makes them different from the male/mainstream texts. She argues that attempts to define feminist utopias such as Pearson's (1981) and Gearhart's (1984) potentially lead to notions of feminist utopias as having a binary relationship to the present, as mere reversals of the status quo. Further, she pushes to suggest that such definitions have the effect of homogenizing and defining feminism itself. Again, her main concern is with how these definitions close off understandings of feminism and utopianism.
In the second chapter, Sargisson focuses on function-based approaches to utopianism and judges these approaches as superior to the previous two. She argues that theorists that focus on the function of utopia tend to suggest that it is 'transformative, subversive or oppositional, or to have some other radical or political function' (47). Sargisson takes issue however with the definition of 'opposition' in these accounts. Looking at Mannheim (1936), she argues for the too simplistic dualism assumed between ideology and utopia. For Mannheim (1936) the ideological is what retains order, while the utopic destroys that order. Sargisson refutes this notion of utopia mostly due to the requirement that it must achieve change, which Sargisson suggests brings utopia too close to revolution. Sargisson argues that while utopia 'depends on and results from dissatisfaction with the present,' it does not 'comprise a coherent body in dialectical opposition with the dominant ideology' (49). From these socialist oppositional approaches to utopianism, Sargisson moves to consider a feminist oppositional model which she alligns herself with and defines as such: 'The function of utopianism, thus approached, is not to blueprint and enclose the future but to explore alternative states of being to those presently existing - to stretch and expand our understanding of the possible, thus making a multiplicity of radically different futures not only desirable but also conceivable' (52). As for the 'time' of utopia, Sargisson argues that utopianism is about anticipating 'different "nows"' (52) and thus operates in the political present and works as 'a paradigm shift in consciousness' (52). In other words, utopianism is moved from a 'speculative (or concrete) future to a no place/good place that is an alternative reading of the present' (52). In this conceptualization, utopianism sounds more like a mode of possibility...
Sargisson then turns to Moylan and 'critical utopias.' Unlike Mannheim, Moylan allows for a multiplicity of opposition (his conception of the historic bloc). Further, he also stresses process and even critiques the concept of opposition as dialectical to ideology. 'Critical opposition is not the classical binary tradition but opposes the existing space of opposition; its funciton is not to provide an alternative but to deny that existing options are the only ones' (55). However, she is concerned with his tentative suggestion of a unity between oppositional forces but she does like how he attempts to explain precisely why utopias do not seem to be about perfection after all.
She therefore privileges function as an approach to utopianism and will go on to argue for utopianism as a place to think feminist political theory. She ends the chapter by using utopianism as a means to creating a new space to conceptualize past, present, future. Sargisson thus stresses 'the paradigmatic nature of the transformative effect of utopian thought: if utopian thought can change the shape and scope of our consciousness then the unthinkable can be thought and desired' (59).
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Jacoby, Picture Imperfect (ii) (2005)
Chapters 2-4 & Epilogue
In Chapter 2, Jacoby argues that violence comes not from utopia, but from the end of utopia. With this, he attempts to show through situated and biographical readings of the 'anti-utopians' in Western philosophy, how their refusal of utopia stemmed from the political collapses of their time. Beginning with More's own turn from Utopia to potential totalitarian beliefs. Jacoby argues that it is 'with More, or through More, we can see the emergence of modern anti-utopianism' (48). However, Jacoby is adamant to insist that More's changing opinion of utopia was deeply embedded in the political climate of the times, namely the religious and political changes occurring in the 16th Century Reformation which argues Jacoby, led to More feeling 'a sense of betrayed utopian hopes' (49). Jacoby goes on to suggest that it is this quality of living through a dream 'gone amuck' (50) that is an important aspect of the anti-utopians. Jacoby then turns to what he describes as a 'liberal anti-utopian consensus' (50) typified by the writings of Popper, Talman, Arendt, and Berlin. Tracing through what Jacoby identifies as their similarities (from dates of birth to experiences of war, communism), Jacoby highlights how their experiences of communism forever tainted how they saw fascism, 'the latter was viewed through the lens of the former' (52). What Jacoby seems to be suggesting in this chapter then is that anti-utopianism stems from disappointment in the outcome of utopia. These writers turn from utopia from a disappointment, and assume that utopia becomes exhausted by the failure of communism.
In Chapters 3 and 4, Jacoby attempts to outline what an iconoclastic utopianism might mean through turning to Judaism. 'The Jewish tradition gave rise to what might be called an iconoclastic utopianism - an anti-utopian utopianism that resisted blueprints' (85). These chapters do not seem particularly important to read too closely at this point, suffice it to say that he wants to argue for the sustaining impulse to dream the future as stemming from a refusal to picture what it might exactly look like. He also makes it clear in this chapter that he sees utopianism as essential: 'a world without utopian longings is forlorn. For society as well as for the individual, it means to journey without a compass' (143).
In the Epilogue, he attempts to tease out the contradition in utopia between present-day struggle and future dreaming. Jacoby argues that utopia necessarily tries to keep a distance from the day-to-day otherwise 'it would forfeit its own commitment to a realm beyond the immediate choices' (145). However, he also says that the opposite is also true, that utopianism 'emerges out of and returns to contemporary political realities' (146). He argues that this is the defining contradiction of the utopian project, 'it partakes at once of the limited choices of the day and the unlimited possibilities of the morrow. It straddles two time zones: the one we inhabit now and the one that might exist in the future' (146). He connects this to the style of More's Utopia, as it is written in two books. Jacoby highlights that we need to find a way to connect utopian thinking with the everyday and he seems to suggest starting from the negative. We may not know what the 'end of racism' will look like, but we know we want it to end, 'utopian wishes need to be situated against something' (148). Jacoby argues that while utopian wishes may indeed be dependent on a negation, they go beyond this negation to keep 'an ear, if not an eye, on the future' (149).
In Chapter 2, Jacoby argues that violence comes not from utopia, but from the end of utopia. With this, he attempts to show through situated and biographical readings of the 'anti-utopians' in Western philosophy, how their refusal of utopia stemmed from the political collapses of their time. Beginning with More's own turn from Utopia to potential totalitarian beliefs. Jacoby argues that it is 'with More, or through More, we can see the emergence of modern anti-utopianism' (48). However, Jacoby is adamant to insist that More's changing opinion of utopia was deeply embedded in the political climate of the times, namely the religious and political changes occurring in the 16th Century Reformation which argues Jacoby, led to More feeling 'a sense of betrayed utopian hopes' (49). Jacoby goes on to suggest that it is this quality of living through a dream 'gone amuck' (50) that is an important aspect of the anti-utopians. Jacoby then turns to what he describes as a 'liberal anti-utopian consensus' (50) typified by the writings of Popper, Talman, Arendt, and Berlin. Tracing through what Jacoby identifies as their similarities (from dates of birth to experiences of war, communism), Jacoby highlights how their experiences of communism forever tainted how they saw fascism, 'the latter was viewed through the lens of the former' (52). What Jacoby seems to be suggesting in this chapter then is that anti-utopianism stems from disappointment in the outcome of utopia. These writers turn from utopia from a disappointment, and assume that utopia becomes exhausted by the failure of communism.
In Chapters 3 and 4, Jacoby attempts to outline what an iconoclastic utopianism might mean through turning to Judaism. 'The Jewish tradition gave rise to what might be called an iconoclastic utopianism - an anti-utopian utopianism that resisted blueprints' (85). These chapters do not seem particularly important to read too closely at this point, suffice it to say that he wants to argue for the sustaining impulse to dream the future as stemming from a refusal to picture what it might exactly look like. He also makes it clear in this chapter that he sees utopianism as essential: 'a world without utopian longings is forlorn. For society as well as for the individual, it means to journey without a compass' (143).
In the Epilogue, he attempts to tease out the contradition in utopia between present-day struggle and future dreaming. Jacoby argues that utopia necessarily tries to keep a distance from the day-to-day otherwise 'it would forfeit its own commitment to a realm beyond the immediate choices' (145). However, he also says that the opposite is also true, that utopianism 'emerges out of and returns to contemporary political realities' (146). He argues that this is the defining contradiction of the utopian project, 'it partakes at once of the limited choices of the day and the unlimited possibilities of the morrow. It straddles two time zones: the one we inhabit now and the one that might exist in the future' (146). He connects this to the style of More's Utopia, as it is written in two books. Jacoby highlights that we need to find a way to connect utopian thinking with the everyday and he seems to suggest starting from the negative. We may not know what the 'end of racism' will look like, but we know we want it to end, 'utopian wishes need to be situated against something' (148). Jacoby argues that while utopian wishes may indeed be dependent on a negation, they go beyond this negation to keep 'an ear, if not an eye, on the future' (149).
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Jacoby, Picture Imperfect (i) (2005)
Preface and Chapter 1
Jacoby, like many utopian scholars, attempts to distinguish two versions of utopia. He calls the two currents of utopian thought, the 'blue print tradition' and the 'iconoclastic tradition' (xiv). They are distinguishable in that the blue print tradition is content-driven, outlining what utopia might/should look like, down to small details such as eating etiquette, dress, etc. He wants to distance his project from this rigid understanding of utopia and instead embrace those iconoclastic utopians, 'those who dreamt of a superior society but who declined to give its precise measurements' (xv). In this sense he alligns himself with Bloch, in that he is more interested in a utopian impulse or spirit.
Jacoby sets out to attempt to explain why he thinks 'the utopian vision has flagged' through a three part hyphothesis: the collapse of communism, the assumed connection between utopians and totalitarians, and an impoverished Western imagination (5). While pointing to his inability to add much to the fall of communism other than to suggest a wholesale rejection of all thinking connected to communism need not be thrown out tout court, Jacoby's main concerns is to splinter utopia from its connotation as necessarily totalitarian or, in other words, as a path to dystopia. He argues that utopia/dystopia is a false dichotomy, pointing to how dystopia has been seen as the necessary outcome of utopia, thereby emptying utopia itself. He provides a rich review of the most famous dystopian novels (1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World) to argue for their critiques of totalitarianism, rather than utopia. He further traces through the many publications, mostly focused on Nazism and genocide, that take utopia and totalitarianism to be necessarily yoked together. Jacoby argues that it is not utopian designs that lead to war, violence, and genocide but rather ethnic, religious, or nationalist agendas. Second, Jacoby argues that the position of imagination in both utopia and totalitarianism further cleaves them from one another. While imagination is integral to utopia, it threatens totalitarianism. However, Jacoby diagnoses a contemporary impoverishment of imagination. His concept of imagination links it to childhood, a space which he argues sustains imagination. He points to contemporary childhood as being 'colonized' by television, boredom, and the toy market which has created 'less inclination - and perhaps fewer resources - for utopian dreaming' (30).
Jacoby wants to insist on moving away from blue print utopias: 'The blueprints not only appear repressive, they also rapidly become outdated' (32). I think this part is interesting because it belies his belief in a universal tradition, like Bloch. He also emphasizes that the iconoclastic utopians held on to what could potentially be categorized as utopian affects: 'harmony, leisure, peace, and pleasure' (33). He is also keen to suggest that the Jewishness of these iconoclastic utopians may have something to do with their refusal of images, their resistance to drawing out their utopias. Further, he remarks that the refusal to sketch out utopia 'refuses to reduce the unknown future to the well-known present, the hope to its cause' (36). He wants to insist on utopia as no-place and I am wary of this tendency to agree with a universal utopian tendency that manages to free itself from particular presents.
Jacoby, like many utopian scholars, attempts to distinguish two versions of utopia. He calls the two currents of utopian thought, the 'blue print tradition' and the 'iconoclastic tradition' (xiv). They are distinguishable in that the blue print tradition is content-driven, outlining what utopia might/should look like, down to small details such as eating etiquette, dress, etc. He wants to distance his project from this rigid understanding of utopia and instead embrace those iconoclastic utopians, 'those who dreamt of a superior society but who declined to give its precise measurements' (xv). In this sense he alligns himself with Bloch, in that he is more interested in a utopian impulse or spirit.
Jacoby sets out to attempt to explain why he thinks 'the utopian vision has flagged' through a three part hyphothesis: the collapse of communism, the assumed connection between utopians and totalitarians, and an impoverished Western imagination (5). While pointing to his inability to add much to the fall of communism other than to suggest a wholesale rejection of all thinking connected to communism need not be thrown out tout court, Jacoby's main concerns is to splinter utopia from its connotation as necessarily totalitarian or, in other words, as a path to dystopia. He argues that utopia/dystopia is a false dichotomy, pointing to how dystopia has been seen as the necessary outcome of utopia, thereby emptying utopia itself. He provides a rich review of the most famous dystopian novels (1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World) to argue for their critiques of totalitarianism, rather than utopia. He further traces through the many publications, mostly focused on Nazism and genocide, that take utopia and totalitarianism to be necessarily yoked together. Jacoby argues that it is not utopian designs that lead to war, violence, and genocide but rather ethnic, religious, or nationalist agendas. Second, Jacoby argues that the position of imagination in both utopia and totalitarianism further cleaves them from one another. While imagination is integral to utopia, it threatens totalitarianism. However, Jacoby diagnoses a contemporary impoverishment of imagination. His concept of imagination links it to childhood, a space which he argues sustains imagination. He points to contemporary childhood as being 'colonized' by television, boredom, and the toy market which has created 'less inclination - and perhaps fewer resources - for utopian dreaming' (30).
Jacoby wants to insist on moving away from blue print utopias: 'The blueprints not only appear repressive, they also rapidly become outdated' (32). I think this part is interesting because it belies his belief in a universal tradition, like Bloch. He also emphasizes that the iconoclastic utopians held on to what could potentially be categorized as utopian affects: 'harmony, leisure, peace, and pleasure' (33). He is also keen to suggest that the Jewishness of these iconoclastic utopians may have something to do with their refusal of images, their resistance to drawing out their utopias. Further, he remarks that the refusal to sketch out utopia 'refuses to reduce the unknown future to the well-known present, the hope to its cause' (36). He wants to insist on utopia as no-place and I am wary of this tendency to agree with a universal utopian tendency that manages to free itself from particular presents.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Suvin, On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre (1972)
Suvin famously argues for the definition of SF as 'the literature of cognitive estrangement' (372). Suvin connects the subject-matter of the genre to a human curiosity of the unknown, whether it be a new space or, as has been more frequently the case since the industrial revolution, a new time. Further, a defining desire of the genre has been the 'hope of finding in the unknown the ideal environment, tribe, state, intelligence, or other aspect of the Supreme Good' (374). Suvin explains that at all costs, the SF genre holds up the possibility of other systems (374). These other systems are postulated through a fictional hypothesis and developed in SF with scientific rigor (374). It is this combination of 'factual reporting of fictions' aimed at 'implying a new set of norms' that can be said to define the attitude of estrangement (374). In other words, that which estranges is must be familiar enough to be recognized but it also is strange enough to hint towards the creative. It is this particular quality, or formal framework, that Suvin argues distinguishes SF from other genres. Suvin clarifies that his use of the words 'cognitiveness' or 'cognition' emphasizes a reflection on reality and 'implies a creative approach tending toward a dynamic transformation rather than toward a static mirroring of the author's environment' (377). In other words, for Suvin, the category of the cognitive in SF is infused with a creative pull towards movement and change.
In comparison with other literary genres, Suvin argues that it is this mix of cognitive and creative that distinguishes SF. First, myth is opposed to the scientific, cognitive approach of SF because of the way it fixes human relations and offers explanations of essences. Suvin argues that SF, in contrast to myth, 'does not ask about The Man or The World, but which man?: in which kind of world?: and why such a man in such a kind of world?' (375). Second, SF is differentiated from the fairy tale precisely because the latter occurs in a world that is 'indifferent toward cognitive possibilities' (375). In other words, it does not use imagination to refer back to and understand reality. Third, the fantasy genre is aggressively opposed to the cognitive, 'committed to the interposition of anti-cognitive laws into the empirical environment' (375). Fourth, Suvin argues that of all the comparisons, the pastoral is closer to SF in the way it imagines worlds without money, urbanization, etc., and thus can distill to important human motivations: 'erotics and power-hunger' (376). However, Suvin prefers to think of the pastoral as an early but unsophisticated approach to SF.
Suvin also clarifies that each of these genres has a unique relationship to time that is not compatible with SF. 'The myth is located above time, the fairy-tale in a conventional grammatical past which is really outside time, and the fantasy in the hero's abnormally disturbed present' (378). SF, on the other hand, 'concentrates on possible futures and their spatial equivalents, but it can deal with the present and the past as special cases of a possible historical sequence seen from an estranged point of view' (378). So while Suvin asserts that SF is indeed oriented 'futurologically' (379), he does seem to be suggesting that this temporal orientation might be bound up with pasts and presents.
Suvin again and again asserts that the challenge of SF is precisely the mix of the cognitive and creative. It is this mix that distinguishes it from other literary genres as well as gives it its unique relationship to time, imagination, and science.
In comparison with other literary genres, Suvin argues that it is this mix of cognitive and creative that distinguishes SF. First, myth is opposed to the scientific, cognitive approach of SF because of the way it fixes human relations and offers explanations of essences. Suvin argues that SF, in contrast to myth, 'does not ask about The Man or The World, but which man?: in which kind of world?: and why such a man in such a kind of world?' (375). Second, SF is differentiated from the fairy tale precisely because the latter occurs in a world that is 'indifferent toward cognitive possibilities' (375). In other words, it does not use imagination to refer back to and understand reality. Third, the fantasy genre is aggressively opposed to the cognitive, 'committed to the interposition of anti-cognitive laws into the empirical environment' (375). Fourth, Suvin argues that of all the comparisons, the pastoral is closer to SF in the way it imagines worlds without money, urbanization, etc., and thus can distill to important human motivations: 'erotics and power-hunger' (376). However, Suvin prefers to think of the pastoral as an early but unsophisticated approach to SF.
Suvin also clarifies that each of these genres has a unique relationship to time that is not compatible with SF. 'The myth is located above time, the fairy-tale in a conventional grammatical past which is really outside time, and the fantasy in the hero's abnormally disturbed present' (378). SF, on the other hand, 'concentrates on possible futures and their spatial equivalents, but it can deal with the present and the past as special cases of a possible historical sequence seen from an estranged point of view' (378). So while Suvin asserts that SF is indeed oriented 'futurologically' (379), he does seem to be suggesting that this temporal orientation might be bound up with pasts and presents.
Suvin again and again asserts that the challenge of SF is precisely the mix of the cognitive and creative. It is this mix that distinguishes it from other literary genres as well as gives it its unique relationship to time, imagination, and science.
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Jameson, Progress Versus Utopia (1982)
Jameson's argues against SF as a representational drama which accustoms its readers to the rapidity of our present moment. Instead, he argues that these visions of a dizzying, rapid technological future are themselves 'historical and dated' (151). He starts by characterizing this notion of the 'future' as 'merely the future of one moment of what is now our own past' (151). This, he suggests, requires a shift in understanding of the function of present-day SF. Rather than give us images of the future, Jameson argues that SF's structure is 'to defamiliarize and restructure our experience of our own present' (151). Indeed, but for Jameson, our own present in SF is experienced not as present, but instead it re-installs our present in History itself. In Jameson's conception, the past is 'dead' and the future is 'unthinkable' (152). Further, Jameson argues that the present is 'unavailable to us in its own right because of the sheer quantitative immensity of objects and individual lives it comprises' (152). It is SF's future imaginings then that function to transform 'our own present into the determinate past of something yet to come' (152). In SF, we experience our present as 'some future world's remote past, as if posthumous and as though collectively remembered' (152). Jameson argues that this is not only historical melancholy, but that it is comforting to be able to recognize our present day as not the 'end of history.' Through enabling an apprehension of a historical present, SF is not about keeping the future alive but instead to 'demonstrate and to dramatize our incapacity to imagine the future' (153). It is this that Jameson characterizes as the nature of utopia as a genre in our contemporary time.
On the utopian genre specifically, Jameson argues that its purpose is to 'bring home in local and determinate ways, and with a fullness of concrete detail, our constitutionally inability to imagine Utopia itself' (153). Jameson pushes for the importance of attending to the negative in utopian texts, as it is the place of that repression that will lead us to an understanding of the contradiction of utopian texts. This leads Jameson to his last claim, namely that if we accept that utopian narrative is about our inability to imagine Utopia, such texts then 'find their deepest "subjects" in the impossibility of their own production, in the interrogation of the dilemmas involved in their own emergence as utopian texts' (156).
To conclude, what I take from Jameson's article is that SF is about re-instating a sense of history in the present through enabling us to understand our present as a future past. Further, that the utopian genre specifically performs this inability to imagine a future utopia, but that it is this performance of failure that produces utopian texts.
On the utopian genre specifically, Jameson argues that its purpose is to 'bring home in local and determinate ways, and with a fullness of concrete detail, our constitutionally inability to imagine Utopia itself' (153). Jameson pushes for the importance of attending to the negative in utopian texts, as it is the place of that repression that will lead us to an understanding of the contradiction of utopian texts. This leads Jameson to his last claim, namely that if we accept that utopian narrative is about our inability to imagine Utopia, such texts then 'find their deepest "subjects" in the impossibility of their own production, in the interrogation of the dilemmas involved in their own emergence as utopian texts' (156).
To conclude, what I take from Jameson's article is that SF is about re-instating a sense of history in the present through enabling us to understand our present as a future past. Further, that the utopian genre specifically performs this inability to imagine a future utopia, but that it is this performance of failure that produces utopian texts.
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