Webliography

4. If science fiction is a genre that imagines our future, what happens to gender and race?
Kate Lowe


Sarah Zettel's article, Things That Don’t Go Away: Race and Science Fiction (Part I) is a commentary on the ongoing debate regarding science fiction writers and their depiction of race in their fiction. It is suitable for the research being undertaken because it gives an overview of how the science fiction genre has evolved in the US. This would be useful in the research project in explaining how future representations of race in science fiction have been moulded by the context of the writers themselves. The article was written in 2009 and published in an online review/commentary site called BSC Review. The author is well established and has won awards for her writing. The material is a good online source, because the discussion forum below the article is a great source of additional debate from selected guests of BSC Review on the contents of the article, where the author clarifies her intent. There are no references stated which makes the source a little less reliable.

Sherryl Vint's article, Both/And: Science Fiction and the Question of Changing Gender discusses the use of science fiction by cultural theorists of gender in the development of discourses of gender. She discusses how gender in the future and thus in science fiction will become something of ideological significance as opposed to biological significance. She uses examples from several science fiction sources, one of which involved a character who switched amongst gender roles, experiencing each with confusion and self-discovery. The novel explores the social construction of male and female genders,“In Delany's representation, being a woman is the result of a long process of socialisation, the specific contours of which will be determined by the ideological elements influencing this design”. The article is thoroughly referenced, and is published in a weekly online magazine called “Strange Horizons”. The magazine is based on speculative fiction and seems to be thoroughly edited by established authors.

A news article entitled Human race will 'split into two different species' by Niall Frith, published in Mail Online, an online version of the Science and Technology section of the Mail newspaper would be useful in the research project, because it compares current evolutional science theories to ideas expressed in Science Fiction of the past. Frith says that scientists have theorised that one day the human race will split into two groups. These groups being attractive intelligent type, and the dim-witted, goblin-like type. Genders physical features will be driven by indicators of health, youth, and vitality. Technological advances will breed a homogenous appearance. There will be no difference in race, but there will be a single, coffee coloured skin tone. He compares these ideas to the race construction in HG Wells, The Time Machine, between the Eloi and Morlock races. The source is a well intentioned expression of scientific theories, edited and published in an online newspaper. While of course this is ridden with inconsistencies and easily critiqued, the comparison of the scientific theories for the future, and an authors imagined future is very intriguing. A link could be examined between this and Vint's article, over the ideological framework of race or gender, rather than purely biological perspective. An author conceptualised the ideological framework needed for that race relationship to develop, as did a scientist from a more biological perspective.

Sybille Lammes' article entitled Moving Science: Science, Gender and Science Fiction, like Vint's article, articulates the discourses surrounding gender and science fiction. She in particular focuses on the way the female body is represented in various texts. She discusses some of Donna Haraway's theories considering that science and fiction not be seen as two separate spheres, but as part of a continuum of cultural expressions. In this way Lammes' article can be linked to Frith, in that Science itself can be seen as linked intrinsically with science fiction. The article was published in a website run by the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST). EASST is a scholarly association that intends to pursue cultural, political, literary and scientific study of science and cultural advancement. In this way it is an appropriate and reliable online source. It is adequately referenced, and is relevant to the research project. The level of analysis is suitable for university level.

Vanessa E. Jones wrote for The Boston Globe newspaper an article entitled Race, the final frontier: Black science-fiction writers bring a unique perspective to the genre. The article was interesting as it examined again the depiction of race in science fiction based entirely on the writings of white authors. The article describes the black science fiction community as “tiny”. The unrepresentative nature of the authorship is perhaps what has lead to such a lopsided representation of race in the future. Like Vint's article, Jones discusses Delany and his essay on racism in science fiction. It is a relevant source because it would help to comprehend the race constructions in the texts and the context and authorship within which the genre was written. It is an article from an established newspaper so it can be said to be a reliable source. It is useful as an online source as it is more easily accessed than its print counterpart, and requires less sifting of information to locate.

As a general finding, reliable sources online seem to be few and far between. There are a lot of books available for viewing on Google Books, but this only leads to the conclusion that perhaps the internet has not yet caught up to conventional print sources as a resource for research projects. In regards to the authenticity of the sources, it could be argued that even print sources are interpretations of information, so online essays and reviews are equally adequate. The online magazines and newspapers were the type of sources that were generally most effective as online sources. Most of the information was not readily available, as most scholarly journals require a subscription. The sources located were appropriate as online sources, generally well referenced and from established authors.