This dissertation examines the African science fiction genre also known as Africanfuturism. It assesses distinguishing features of the genre, highlighting connections between Africanfuturism and Afrofuturism. This study interrogates Nnedi Okorafor’s coinage and definition of Africanfuturism by exploring her critical works as well as her literary oeuvre with a view to understanding the uniqueness of the genre. A close reading of Okorafor’s texts along with other prominent Africanfuturist authors reveals that both genres are inherently different but there are points of convergence. As a result of this, I explore Pan-africanfuturism as an inclusive genre with the potential of embracing all forms of Black futures. In each chapter, I contrast Okorafor’s work with a different science fiction author to illustrate how diverse the interpretations of Africanfuturist visions are.

No description available.

No description available.

Cette étude examine deux théories explicatives du phénomène des témoignages ovniologiques, à savoir, la thèse de la contamination culturelle (Klass, 1974), attribuant les témoignages à l'influence de la science-fiction, incluant par extension la notion que l'expérience de visionnement d’un film de science-fiction induirait un état général de conscience modifié similaire à celui rapporté par les sujets ovniologiques, et celle de la théorie de la personnalité fantasque (Wilson et Barber, 1983) associant les prétendants aux expériences ovniologiques à une série de caractéristiques relevant d’un diagnostic de personnalité fantasque (Bartholomew, Basterfield, et Howard, 1991). Quatre groupes de sujets, dont deux rapportant des expériences ovniologiques de nature non-intense (n = 20),ou intense (n ~ 7), un groupe visionnant un film de science-fiction (n-28), et un groupe contrôle (n=30), ont complété le PCI (“Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory“; Fekala,1991b), évaluant plusieurs composantes de la conscience, et le LPF (Bartholomew, Basterfield, et Howard, 1991; Nickell, 1996), mesurant divers traits fantasques. Les résultats observés vont à l’encontre de l'hypothèse de contamination culturelle, et n marquent pas, non plus, la présence, chez les sujets visionnant le film de science-fiction, d’un état général de conscience modifié. Seuls les sujets ovniologiques rapportant des expériences intenses exhibent un état global de conscience modifié, et plus spécifiquement, des altérations aux niveaux de la conscience, de la perception temporelle, de la mémoire, de la tension intérieure, et des affects négatifs. De plus, les résultats démontrent que les caractéristiques fantasques évaluées ne sont pas spécifiques aux sujets ovniologiques intenses, ou non-intenses. Ces résultats sont discutés à la lumière des hypothèses à l’étude.

With the rise of the Popular Front during the 1930s, the American Left came together under the symbols of the “people” and “America,” and as its ranks swelled with modernity’s disenfranchised, radicals utilized the structures and discourses of modernity in the name of political struggle against exploitive American capitalism and fascism abroad. Science fiction and its devoted fan community were among these structures and discourses. Though both were largely conservative, entwined with American corporate capitalism, one group of fans embraced Communism and hoped to politicize science fiction and its fandom. The Michelists, as they called themselves, worked through the established channels of science fiction and fandom advocating a unique Marxist understanding of science fiction. This report situates them within the Popular Front, particularly its discourses of science and popular culture, and highlights how the particularities of the genre and its fandom shaped their political beliefs and actions. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

This study serves as an introduction to three recent narratives in Spanish Science Fiction. While this literary genre has long been read in Spain in translation, it is only recently that Sci-Fi has been successful as a popular literature produced by native authors. Álex de la Iglesia, Gabriela Bustelo and Rafael Reig have worked in realist and genre fiction through their careers but chose to use Science Fiction to speak of the rapidly changing space of Madrid. Their criticism is centered on the changes to the physical, social, economic and political landscape of Madrid post-1992. My analysis is based on the works of the geographer David Harvey, among others, which helps to underline the importance of the urbanization of capital and consciousness that the three narratives disentangle. While being three very different texts - one film and two novels -, they all manipulate concerns of time and space to come to a similar conclusion. Their narratives serve as a warning about how the good intentions of humanist theories like feminism or scientific advancement can easily turn into a nightmare by instead serving the needs of capitalism rather than those of social justice.

In this dissertation I explore a number of contemporary science fiction franchises in order to ascertain how the figure of the action heroine has evolved throughout her recent history. There has been a tendency in film criticism to view these strong women as ‘figuratively male’ and therefore not ‘really’ women, which, I argue, is largely due to a reliance on the psychoanalytic paradigms that have dominated feminist film theory since its beginnings. Building on Elisabeth Hills’s work on the character of Ellen Ripley of the Alien series, I explore how notions of ‘becoming’ and the ‘Body without Organs’ proposed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari can be activated to provide a more positive set of readings of active women on screen. These readings are not limited by discussions of sex or gender, but discuss the body in terms of its increased capacities as it interacts with the world around it. I do not argue for a Deleuzian analysis of cinema as such, because this project is concerned with aspects of representation which did not form part of Deleuze’s philosophy of cinema. Rather I use Deleuze and Guattari’s work to explore alternative ways of reading the active women these franchises present and the benefits they afford. Through these explorations I demonstrate, however, that applying the Deleuzoguattarian ‘method’ is a potentially risky undertaking for feminist theory. Deconstructing notions of ‘being’ and ‘identity’ through the project of becoming may have benefits in terms of addressing ‘woman’ beyond binaristic thought, but it may also have negative consequences. What may be liberating for feminist film theory may be also be destructive. This is because through becoming we destabilise a position from which to address potentially ideologically unsound treatments of women on screen.

Uppsatsen studerar porträtt av ondska i poulärkultur, genom att titta på filmerna Star Wars- och Harry Potterfilmerna. Både manus, ljud och bild utgör fokus för uppsatsen.

The concept of home has often been recognized as a foundational concept in popular science-fiction (SF) as the point of departure or place of return in the space odyssey, timetravel mission, or heroic quest. Most SF narratives evidently centre on notions of homelessness, homecomings, threats to home or journeys from it. However, independent of the film’s narrative, home is also considered within SF as the place of the audience member, spatially and temporally, the distinction of which is critical for establishing the alien encounter with the putative future world. As a critical genre, SF continues to offer insights into the contemporary milieu that have significant implications for all areas of cultural research and, more specifically, architecture. While architectural literature and practice has confirmed a sustained interest in SF, representations of home are often overlooked in favour of the various innovations and special effects on-screen. It is the intention of the research to elevate the discussion of home in SF from its often abstract engagement by architectural texts, and more specifically question how notions of home are expressed in SF film through the various narratives and designed environments. Thus, the research posits the notion of home as providing the essential link between SF and architecture by establishing a theoretical framework and detailed analyses of four films adapted from the prolific American SF author, Philip K. Dick: Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall (1990), Stephen Spielberg’s Minority Report (2002), and Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly (2006). The research examines science, method, and truth, in relation to the foundations of the SF genre and its various representations of home. Furthermore, by comparing and contrasting modern and postmodern approaches to design, similarities are drawn between the cultural mechanisms of SF imagery and architecture. The research draws from SF theorists such as Darko Suvin, Scott Bukatman, and Vivian Sobchack, as well as authors focussed on notions of home such as Witold Rybczynski, Mary Douglas, Juhanni Pallasmaa, and David Morley. Topics related to contemporary identity construction, gender roles, domestic environments, global mobility and connectivity, spectacle, surveillance, tourism, and technology, are scattered throughout the chapters offering a broad survey of the notion of home as represented in contemporary SF with the intent of generating further architectural discussion.