Future Females, The Next Generation New Voices and Velocities in Feminist Science Fiction Criticism

by Baccolini, Raffaella; Barr, Marleen S.; Byrne, Deirdre; Cortiel, Jeanne; Deery, June; Dehler, Johanna; Donawerth, Jane; Finch, Sheila; Cranny-Francis, Anne; Gant-Britton, Lisbeth; Gough, Val; Gordon, Joan; Helford, Elyce Rae; Hollinger, Veronica; Kakoudak

• ISBN13: 9780847691258
• ISBN10: 084769125X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-03-22
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

Feminist science fiction pioneer Marleen S. Barr, together with a talented crew of the field's established and emerging theorists, reveal new critical insights in Future Females, the Next Generation. This groundbreaking collection includes contributors from across the globe who find effective venues for imagining feminist thought experiments. A multinational perspective runs through this innovative volume, focusing on the latest dynamic trends in feminist science fiction, such as race, gender, cyberfeminism, the media, and new writers in the field.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
James Gunn
Karen Hellekson
Introduction: ``Everything's Coming Up Roses''---Or, Mainstream Feminist Science Fiction, the Uncola	1	(12)
Marleen S. Barr
Part One: Utopia and Dystopia: A New Genre, Ecotopia, and the 1990s
Gender and Genre in the Feminist Critical Dystopias of Katharine Burdekin, Margaret Atwood, and Octavia Butler	13	(22)
Raffaella Baccolini
Revising Paradise: Judy Grahn's Ecotopia Mundane's World	35	(14)
Johanna Dehler
The Feminist Dystopia of the 1990s: Record of Failure, Midwife of Hope	49	(18)
Jane Donawerth
Post-Phallic Culture: Reality Now Resembles Utopian Feminist Science Fiction	67	(20)
Marleen S. Barr
Part Two: Alternative Cyberpunk: Marge Piercy, Jeff Noon, and Pat Cadigan
The Biopolitics of Cyberspace: Piercy Hacks Gibson	87	(22)
June Deery
A Crossbreed Loneliness? Jeff Noon's Feminist Cyberpunk	109	(20)
Val Gough
Real Lives Complicate Matters in Schrodinger's World: Pat Cadigan's Alternative Cyberpunk Vision	129	(16)
Elisabeth Kraus
Part Three: Sex/Gender: Eroticizing Cyborgs and Queering Science Fiction
The Erotics of the (cy)Borg: Authority and Gender in the Sociocultural Imaginary	145	(20)
Anne Cranny-Francis
Pinup and Cyborg: Exaggerated Gender and Artificial Intelligence	165	(32)
Despoil Kakoudaki
(Re)reading Queerly: Science Fiction, Feminism, and the Defamiliarization of Gender	197	(22)
Vernica Hollinger
Part Four: First Contacts: Rereading Joanna Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin and South Africa, and Eleanor Arnason's Other
Determinate Politics of Indeterminacy: Reading Joanna Russ's Recent Work in Light of Her Early Short Fiction	219	(18)
Jeanne Cortiel
Truth and Story: History in Ursula K. Le Guin's Short Fiction and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission	237	(10)
Deirdre Byrne
Incite/On-Site/Insight: Implications of the Other in Eleanor Arnason's Science Fiction	247	(14)
Joan Gordon
Part Five: New Female Heroes: Mexican Women and Chicanas, the Star Trek Scientist, and Tank Girl
Mexican Women and Chicanas Enter Futuristic Fiction	261	(16)
Lisbeth Gant-Britton
The Woman Scientist in Star Trek: Voyager	277	(14)
Robin Roberts
Postfeminism and the Female Action-Adventure Hero: Positioning Tank Girl	291	(18)
Elyce Rae Helford
Postscript: A Real Future Female: Dreams, Truth, and Hope	309	(2)
Sheila Finch
Index	311	(10)
About the Contributors	321