Lost in Space: Geographies of Science Fiction

by Rob Kitchin (Editor), James Kneale (Editor)

Overview

Science fiction—one of the most popular literary, cinematic and television genres—has received increasing academic attention in recent years. For philosophers, critical theorists and others it opens up a space in which the here-and-now can be made strange or remade; where virtual reality and cyborg are no longer gimmicks or predictions, but new spaces and subjects.Lost in Space brings together an international collection of authors to explore the diverse spatialities and geographies of space. A diverse range of themes are examined—from geographical and sociological imaginations to nature, scale, geopolitics, modernity, time, identity, the body, power relations and the representation of space.Drawing on a range of theoretical approaches, the essays explore the writings of a broad selection of SF writers and films, including J. G. Ballard, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert, William Gibson, Marge Piercy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Neal Stephenson; the films include Aliens, Bladerunner, Dark City, The Fly, The Invisible Man and Metropolis.Contributors: Stuart C. Aitken, Nick Bingham, David Clarke, Marcus Doel, Sheila Hones, Shaun Huston, Michelle Kendrick, Paul Kingsbury, Michael W. Longan, Barbar J. Morehouse, Timothy Oakes, Jon Taylor Barney Warf

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826457301
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/30/2002
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Rob Kitchin is Lecturer in Human Geography at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

James Kneale is Lecturer in Human Geography at University College London.

Table of Contents

1 Lost in Space, Rob Kitchin and James Kneale2 The Way it Wasn't: Alternative Histories, Contingent Geographies, Barney Warf, Florida State University3 Geography's Conquest of History in 'The Diamond Age', Michael Longan and Tim Oakes, University of Colorado at Boulder 4 Space, Technology and Neal Stephenson's Science Fiction, Michelle Kendrick, Washington State University5 Geographies of Power and Social Relations in Marge Piercy's 'He, She and It', Barbara J Morehouse6 The Subjectivity of the Near Future: Geographical Imaginings in the Work of J G Ballard, Jonathan Solomon Taylor7 Tuning the Self: City Space and SF Horror Movies, Stuart C Aitken, San Diego State University8 Science Fiction and Cinema: The Hysterical Materialism of Pataphysical Space, Paul Kingsbury, University of Kentucky9 An Invention without a Future, a Solution without a Problem: Motor Pirates, Time Machines, and Drunkenness on the Screen10 What We Can Say About Nature: Familiar Geographies, Science Fiction, and Popular Physics, Sheila Hones11 Murray Bookchin on Mars: The Production of Nature in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, Shaun Huston, Portland Community College12 In the Belly of the Monster: Frankenstein, Food, Factishes, and Fiction, Nick Bingham, Open University