published_or_final_version / English / Master / Master of Philosophy

Exploring the products of diverse cinematic modes of production—including Hollywood as well as art and experimental contexts—and their surrounding production and reception discourses, this dissertation reveals the ways in which science-fiction (sf) provided a pervasive influence in the film culture of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan throughout the sixties. In this era, three sf plot-types—disaster, dystopia, and exploration—were mobilized as cultural frames for analyzing contemporary social and technological change, frequently evoking socially critical and/or progressive horizons of interpretation. As such, sixties sf cinema provides an antithesis to the flights of fancy and conservative parables that often epitomized the genre in the fifties. In this era, therefore, Disaster stories called into question nuclear proliferation rather than warning against some intruding alien force. Likewise, Dystopia could be found in Western bourgeois praxis as well as in communist totalitarianism. Exploration, rather than merely promising a hegemonic vision of outer space to be achieved through flag-planting galactic imperialism, could represent the hope for new conceptual and social norms. / text

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Kent State University, 2010. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 26, 2010). Advisor: Loderstedt Michael. Keywords: printmaking; screen printing; photography; installation Includes bibliographical references (p. 21).

Thesis (M.A.) -- Ohio State University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-92). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis (MFA)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2010. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Theo Lipfert. Our tomorrow is a DVD accompanying the thesis. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 40-41).

In much dystopian SF, the city models a society which represses the protagonist's sense of historical time, replacing it with a sense of "private" time affecting isolated individuals. This phenomenon appears in dystopian SF novels of 1960-75--including Thomas M. Disch's 334, John Brunner's The Jagged Orbit, Philip K. Dick's Martian Time-Slip, J. G. Ballard's High-Rise, and Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren--as well as some precursors--including Wells, Zamyatin's We, Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. In these novels the cities also reveal in their chronotopic arrangement the degree to which revolutionary forces can oppose the dystopian order. While the earlier dystopias see revolution crushed by despotic state power, those of 1960-75 see it thwarted by the dehumanizing effects of capitalism. The period from 1960-75 ends in resignation to an existence in which individual action can no longer effect political change, at best tempered by irony (Disch, Delany).

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A significant sub-genre exists within feminist dystopian speculative fiction that has recently consisted of a growing collection of works in which patriarchal theocracies have played an integral role. In Lee Killough's <I>A Voice Out of Ramah</I> (1979), Margaret Atwoods <I>The Handmaids Tale</I> (1985), Sheri S. Teppers <I>Gibbons Decline and Fall</I> (1996), and beyond, a growing number of feminist writers have recognized the role of religious fundamentalisms within modern patriarchies, and the role that these fundamentalisms could play in the creation of a dystopian future. For the sake of brevity, this thesis focuses on Christian fundamentalism in its various manifestations in the late twentieth century. In addition, it discusses the ideological and organizational characteristics of fundamentalisms, the role of fundamentalism, and the implications of fundamentalists deep mistrust of both liberalism and what they call secular humanism, in feminist dystopian speculative fiction from the final three decades of the twentieth century. The current conflict between feminists and fundamentalists is exemplified by the assertion of many different varieties of Christian fundamentalists that the current state of contemporary societyone they consider to be morally depravedis a direct result of womens emancipation. Dystopian speculations based on this assertion play an integral role in <I>A Voice Out of Ramah</I> (1979), <I>The Handmaids Tale</I> (1985), and <I>Gibbons Decline and Fall</I> (1996), and will be examined, in the work of these and other authors, where relevant.

A significant sub-genre exists within feminist dystopian speculative fiction that has recently consisted of a growing collection of works in which patriarchal theocracies have played an integral role. In Lee Killough's <I>A Voice Out of Ramah</I> (1979), Margaret Atwoods <I>The Handmaids Tale</I> (1985), Sheri S. Teppers <I>Gibbons Decline and Fall</I> (1996), and beyond, a growing number of feminist writers have recognized the role of religious fundamentalisms within modern patriarchies, and the role that these fundamentalisms could play in the creation of a dystopian future. For the sake of brevity, this thesis focuses on Christian fundamentalism in its various manifestations in the late twentieth century. In addition, it discusses the ideological and organizational characteristics of fundamentalisms, the role of fundamentalism, and the implications of fundamentalists deep mistrust of both liberalism and what they call secular humanism, in feminist dystopian speculative fiction from the final three decades of the twentieth century. The current conflict between feminists and fundamentalists is exemplified by the assertion of many different varieties of Christian fundamentalists that the current state of contemporary societyone they consider to be morally depravedis a direct result of womens emancipation. Dystopian speculations based on this assertion play an integral role in <I>A Voice Out of Ramah</I> (1979), <I>The Handmaids Tale</I> (1985), and <I>Gibbons Decline and Fall</I> (1996), and will be examined, in the work of these and other authors, where relevant.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on June 25, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-112).