|
179 pages, 1994
$21.00 paper, 0-87745-447-7, 978-0-87745-447-2
“Wolmark has the courage to state that stellar critics such as Jameson, Baudrillard and McHale have left women out of their arguments in regard to science fiction and postmodernism. She shows exactly why the omission is egregious. Then she applies the theories of Jardine, de Lauretis, Hutcheon and Haraway to feminist SF. In other words, after taking the boys to task, she calls on the girls to enhance her argument. Bravo!”—Marleen S. Barr
Aliens and Others explores the radical potential of feminist science fiction to question dominant cultural definitions of difference and identity. With strong, exciting, often brilliant prose, Jenny Wolmark examines the ways in which the conventions of science fiction are subverted so that notions of genre, race, and gender identity are redefined.
Wolmark redirects our understanding of contemporary feminist fiction by considering the ways in which both feminism and postmodernism have enabled women science fiction writers to challenge the “commonsense” nature of social and cultural practices and institutions. Postmodernism's critique of the “grand narratives” of western culture is paralleled by feminist analysis of the patriarchal discourses of that culture. Aliens and Others shows how these projects are connected, both by their recognition of the partiality of dominant cultural practices and by their potential to develop an interventionist cultural politics.
These issues are explored in riveting readings of a wide range of science fiction texts by Octavia Butler, Gwyneth Jones, Vonda McIntyre, C. J. Cherryh, Suzy McKee Charnas, Sally Miller Gearhart, Sheri Tepper, Pamela Sargent, and Margaret Atwood. Cyberpunk and what it can offer feminist science fiction are also explored through the feminist cyberpunk of Pat Cadigan, Marge Piercy, and Elisabeth Vonarburg. Informative, well written, and insightful, Aliens and Others maps each intersection between feminist science fiction, postmodernism, and feminism. |
 |
