This novel is conceived as the first in a series of seven books. It takes place 25,000 years in humanity’s future, primarily on a space station - Laniakea Station - made from the combined cultures and habitations of beings from many galaxies outside our own. It floats eternal in the space between galaxies. It is a utopia of sorts. The novel is a series of connections between: Sainn-Temo, a human clone, grown from the genetic library rescued from the plight of interstellar slavery plaguing the human species; Ailu, a human woman born from actual human parents, stowed away on Laniakea; Swasim, a non-human mining executive attempting to sell off rights to the abandoned human solar system; and Revac, Ailu’s friend, a scientist of renowned fame and importance, inventor of a gene therapy that can stop the aging of living cells. These beings coalesce and bind together across space and time, leading to a discovery with profound consequences for the galaxy and the fate of humanity. The work is not just a sci-fi series but part of a wider universe I am creating across different artistic mediums. The series of works is called Hojas, or leaves. Over the next 2 years, as part of my PhD in anthropology, I will be constructing installation works, sculptures, video art, short stories, and interactive software art (video games!) to complement and build out the backstory leading up to the novel series. I hope for these works to engage participants and readers in co-creating a future mythology where brown and black bodies are triumphant, living well, and free. I will likely keep writing Hojas books until I die (unless we crack immortality!).

Drawing from gender studies, cultural studies, and feminist technoscience literature, this dissertation employs an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the androcentric imaginaries through which humanoid sex robots ("sexbots") emerge. Specifically, I utilize sexbots to interrogate and reflect on issues such as consent, whiteness, and humanity. By situating sexbots as proxies for feminized and racialized humans, I argue that the production, portrayal, and proliferation of sexbots are reflections of how we treat marginalized people, reifying existing hierarchal power relations. This project begins by analyzing the creation and dissemination of sexbots by popular sex technology ("sextech") companies. Critically surveying published papers, interviews, and research from various sexbot texts, I attend to gendered and racialized discourses of sexbot consent and companionship in human-sexbot relationships. Next, I analyze the overwhelming presence of whiteness with/in sexbots, exploring how anti-Black racism manifests in sexbots, and underscoring how both the present and "future" of sextech remains rooted in the past. Then, I catalog and dissect the published materials and interviews of prominent sextech creators, critically juxtaposing the marketing discourses of sexbots and evincing how both the sextech elite and science journalists—specifically writers I refer to as "sexbot journalists"—influence, change, and inform the meanings of sexbots. Finally, I turn to robots and robot alternatives found in feminist speculative fiction, utilizing these stories as a way of looking elsewhere in order to theorize what is possible for sexbots as well as our (current and future) relationships to these emerging technologies. At its core, this dissertation is an invitation to question white heteropatriarchy mediated through the controversial existence of sexbots. While synthetic women are the ostensible "subjects" of investigation—as well as commodities exchanged by creators and subsequently praised by enthusiasts—it is the "real" feminized and racialized humans who lie at the heart of this project. Through a much-needed feminist intervention, this project offers an in-depth analysis of humanoid sex robots and what they reveal about violence and power in the world around us. / Doctor of Philosophy / Humanoid sex robots ("sexbots") have served as inspiration for countless inventors, scholars, and writers of science fact and fiction. Sexbots, as I intend to show, are also shaped by gendered and racialized imaginaries, leading to their condemnation by feminist and race-critical science and technology scholars. At the same time, sexbots are popularly advertised as suitable alternatives for human companionship, promoted as emerging technologies designed for users uninterested in, or unable to, have sexual relations with "real" or "organic" women. Interrogating the troubling imaginaries behind these synthetic women, I analyze the creation, production, and dissemination of sexbots by popular sex technology ("sextech") companies. Specifically, I use sexbots to explore urgent issues such as humanity, consent, and whiteness. Unable to consent to the acts they are programmed to perform, or combat the abuse directed toward them, sexbots are often associated with sexual and gender-based violence. By situating sexbots as proxies for feminized and racialized humans, this project argues that the production, portrayal, and proliferation of sexbots are reflections of how we treat marginalized people, reinforcing existing problems related to patriarchy, misogyny, and anti-Black racism. While this project is deeply interested in sexbots, its heart is intimately human. Ultimately, I use sexbots to critically reflect on issues of power and violence in our world, as well as to (re)imagine feminist relationships to these emerging technologies.

This thesis examines my work to harness ruminative thinking as a driving force for my art practice. With a combination of drawing and painting in watercolor pencil, I activate and engage with rumination through the act of sublimation as defined in clinical psychology. Repetition of process and hand-rendered detail serve as outward channels for my obsessive cyclical thoughts. Based on my experience living with the physical effects of a hyperactive mind, I depict botanical life symbolically in an effort to communicate impressions of the bodily sensations associated with rumination, such as palpable tension, anxiety, or dread. In my research, I have discovered connections between the art historical concept of the sublime and the clinical topic of rumination. Various definitions of the sublime are woven throughout my own analysis, contextualized against historical and contemporary art with an emphasis on science fiction. As a result of this visual research, I have successfully transformed ongoing experience with rumination into a quantifiable framework for my creative process.

It began with the question, "What if the Modern Man was successful in his dominion over nature?" By means of Architecture this thesis became a speculation and commentary on the human condition. But, more than that, this is a story that tells the evolution and outcome of a series of questions and inquiries into the relationship between Architecture, art and the mythopoetic-narrative realm. / Master of Architecture

Depuis l'émergence de la science-fiction au cinéma, ce genre s'est souvent démarqué de son équivalent littéraire grâce à deux spécificités majeures : l'utilisation abondante d'effets spéciaux et un accent marqué sur la représentation d'une iconographie futuriste. Ces éléments visent à subjuguer le spectateur par des effets visuels attirants et à éveiller en lui un « sense of wonder ». Cependant, des sous-courants de ce genre émergent graduellement et acquièrent une importance croissante, méritant une attention particulière et une réflexion approfondie. Dans le cadre de ce mémoire, afin de restreindre le champ de recherche, nous nous concentrerons uniquement sur une tendance spécifique et qui s'est affirmée de manière significative entre 2010 et 2015. Ces nouveaux films de science-fiction, principalement issus d'auteurs indépendants, se distinguent par une réduction notable des effets spéciaux et de l'iconographie traditionnelle associée au genre. Contrairement aux productions hollywoodiennes où l'ampleur des événements, des lieux et des visuels prédomine, ces films n'ont plus pour intention d'étonner le spectateur par un éventail d'images spectaculaires et sensationnelles ou de le surprendre par les plus récentes innovations techniques. Ils se démarquent radicalement par une approche minimaliste et narrative, privilégiant l'exploration de thématiques profondes plutôt que la surenchère visuelle. Cette recherche se veut être un premier exercice d'affiliation de ces films entre eux, en explorant leurs caractéristiques distinctives. L'objectif principal de ce mémoire est de justifier l'appartenance de ces films au grand genre de la science-fiction en démontrant que leur cadre narratif peut être interprété différemment. En analysant ces films produits entre 2010 et 2015, cette étude cherche à mettre en lumière comment ces œuvres, bien que dépouillées de nombreux traits visuels traditionnels, continuent à incarner et à enrichir le genre de la science-fiction par leur approche narrative innovante et leurs thématiques exploratoires.

This dissertation deals with how science fiction reflects the shift in cultural paradigms that occurred in the Soviet Union between the 1960s and the 1970s. Interest was displaced from the rational to the irrational, from a scientific-technologically oriented optimism about the future to art, religion, philosophy and metaphysics. Concomitant with this shift in interests was a shift from the future to an elsewhere or, reformulated in exclusively spatial terms, from utopia to heterotopia. The dissertation consists of an analysis of three novels by the Strugatsky brothers (Arkady, 1925-1991 and Boris 1933-2012): Inspector Glebsky’s Puzzle (Otel’ U pogibšego al’pinista, 1970), The Kid (Malyš, 1971) and Roadside Picnic (Piknik na obočine, 1972) and two films Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel (Hukkunud alpinisti hotell/ Otel’ U pogibšego al’pinista, Kromanov, 1979) and Stalker (Tarkovsky, 1980).  The three novels, allegedly treatments of the theme of contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence, were intended to be published in one volume with the title Unexpected Encounters. The films are based on two of the novels. In the novels an earlier Marxist utopia has given way to a considerably more ambiguous heterotopia, largely envisioned as versions of the West. An indication of how the authors here seem to look back towards history rather than forward towards the future is to be found in the persistent strain of literary Gothic that runs through the novels. This particular trait resurfaces in the films as well.  The films reflect how tendencies only discernable in the novels have developed throughout the decade, such as the budding Soviet consumer culture and the religious sensibilities of the artistic community.

Le cyborg est un avatar de ce que permet la science-fiction lorsqu’elle s’offre comme terrain où développer une heuristique des identités genrées. Donna Haraway, dans le Manifeste cyborg, a relevé le potentiel de liberté discursive que promettait cette figure romanesque. Il m’apparaît que, depuis sa fictionnalisation puis sa théorisation dans les années 1980 et 1990, le cyborg a muté au sein de l’entreprise science-fictionnelle littéraire. Le Silence de la Cité d’Élisabeth Vonarburg et Le Goût de l’immortalité de Catherine Dufour présentent des personnages dont la cyborgitude problématise les questions identitaires du genre humain, à travers une écriture spécifique, affectée par les technologies. Mon analyse des procédés scripturaux s’effectue de pair avec une analyse gender, ce qui me permet de mieux saisir la fictionnalisation toujours changeante des cyborgs dans les oeuvres de Vonarburg et de Dufour. Ces cyborgs déconstruisent les frontières des systèmes binaires traditionnels, en explorant les possibilités trans-genres et trans-espèces que permettent les métamorphoses de leurs corps excentriques. En tant que représentations fantasmées de désirs autrement inavouables, les cyborgs science-fictionnels témoignent du malaise inhérent de couples comme homme/femme, humain/animal ou organique/artificiel. / The cyborg is an avatar of what science fiction can produce as a territory where heuristics of gender identities are developed. In her Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway reveals the potential of discursive liberty provided by the cyborg’s narrative figure. It appears to me that since its fictionalization as well as its theorization throughout the 1980’s and the 1990’s, the cyborg has evolved within science fiction. Élisabeth Vonarburg’s Le Silence de la Cité and Catherine Dufour’s Le Goût de l’immortalité present characters whose cyborg nature explores questions of humankind’s identities through a certain writing affected by technology. My study of these writing processes is conducted through the analysis of gender. This allows me to better understand the ever-changing fictionalization of the cyborgs found within Vonarburg’s and Dufour’s work. These cyborgs deconstruct the borders of traditional binarist systems by experimenting the trans-genders and trans-species possibilities their excentric bodies enable. As fantasized representations of desires otherwise unmentionable, the science fictional cyborgs attest the inherent uneasiness of couples such as man/woman, human/animal or organic/artificial.

This thesis is concerned with the interaction between literature and abstract thought. More specifically, it studies the epistemological charge of the literary, the type of knowledge that is carried by elements proper to fictional narratives into different disciplines. By concentrating on two different theoretical methods, the creation of thought experiments and the framing of possible worlds, methods which were elaborated and are still used today in spheres as varied as modal logics, analytic philosophy and physics, and by following their reinsertion within literary theory, the research develops the theory that both thought experiments and possible worlds are in fact short narrative stories that inform knowledge through literary means. By using two novels, Abbott’s Flatland and Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan, that describe extra-dimensional existence in radically different ways, respectively as a phenomenologically unknowable space and as an outward perspective on time, it becomes clear that literature is constitutive of the way in which worlds, fictive, real or otherwise, are constructed and understood. Thus dimensions, established through extensional analogies as either experimental knowledge or modal possibility for a given world, generate new directions for thought, which can then take part in the inductive/deductive process of scientia. By contrasting the dimensions of narrative with the way that dimensions were historically constituted, the research also establishes that the literary opens up an infinite potential of abstract space-time domains, defined by their specific rules and limits, and that these different experimental folds are themselves partaking in a dimensional process responsible for new forms of understanding. Over against science fiction literary theories of speculation that posit an equation between the fictive and the real, this thesis examines the complex structure of many overlapping possibilities that can organise themselves around larger compossible wholes, thus offering a theory of reading that is both non-mimetic and non-causal. It consequently examines the a dynamic process whereby literature is always reconceived through possibilities actualised by reading while never defining how the reader will ultimately understand the overarching structure. In this context, the thesis argues that a causal story can be construed out of any one interaction with a given narrative—underscoring, for example, the divinatory strength of a particular vision of the future—even as this narrative represents only a fraction of the potential knowledge of any particular literary text. Ultimately, the study concludes by tracing out how novel comprehensions of the literary, framed by the material conditions of their own space and time, endlessly renew themselves through multiple interactions, generating analogies and speculations that facilitate the creation of new knowledge. / Cette thèse se penche sur l’interaction entre la littérature et la pensée abstraite. Plus spécifiquement, elle étudie la charge épistémologique du littéraire, le type de savoir qui est transporté par des éléments propres aux narrations fictives vers d’autres champs disciplinaires. En ce concentrant sur deux méthodes théoriques, la création d’expériences de pensée et l’établissement de mondes possibles, des méthodes qui ont été élaborées et sont toujours d’usage aujourd’hui dans des disciplines aussi variées que la logique modale, la philosophie analytique et la physique, et en suivant leur réinsertion à même la théorie littéraire, la recherche développe la postulat que les expériences de pensée et les mondes possibles sont en fait de courtes histoires narratives qui informent le savoir par des moyens littéraire. En utilisant Flatland de Abbott et The Sirens of Titan de Vonnegut, deux romans qui décrivent l’existence extra-dimensionnelle de façons radicalement différentes, un espace phénoménologiquement inconnaissable chez Abbott et une perspective extérieure au temps chez Vonnegut, il devient clair que la littérature est constitutive de la façon qu’un monde— qu’il soit fictif, réel ou autre—est construit et compris. Ainsi, les dimensions établies par des analogies extensionnelles génèrent de nouvelles directions pour la pensée, qui peut ensuite prendre part au processus inductif/déductif de la scientia. En contrastant les dimensions narratives avec la notion de dimension telle qu’elle s’est constituée historiquement, la recherche établit également que le littéraire ouvre un potentiel infini de domaines spatiotemporels abstraits, définis par leurs règles et leurs limites spécifiques, et que ces différents plis expérimentaux prennent eux-mêmes part dans un processus dimensionnel responsable pour de nouvelles formes de compréhensions. Au-delà des théories spéculatives qu’on retrouve dans l’étude de la science-fiction, où est mise de l’avant une équation entre le fictif et le réel, cette thèse examine la structure complexe de plusieurs possibilités superposées qui peuvent s’organiser autour d’ensembles compossibles plus importants, ainsi offrant une théorie de la lecture qui est à la fois non- mimétique et non-causale. En conséquence, l’investigation examine un processus dynamique par lequel la littérature est toujours reconsidérée au travers des possibilités qui sont actualisées par la lecture, alors qu’elle ne définit jamais la compréhension ultime que le lecteur ou la lectrice se fera de la structure globale du texte. Dans ce contexte, la thèse argumente qu’une histoire causale peut être créée à partir de n’importe quelle interaction avec le texte— soulignant, par exemple, la force divinatoire d’une vision du futur particulière—même si cette narration ne représente qu’une fraction du savoir potentiel contenu à l’intérieur de n’importe quel texte littéraire particulier. Ultimement, l’étude conclut en décrivant comment de nouvelles compréhensions du texte, encadrées par les conditions matérielles de leur propre espace et temps, se renouvellent sans cesse grâce à des interactions multiples, ainsi générant des analogies et des spéculations qui facilitent la création de nouveaux savoirs.

J'ai voulu étudier un phénomène qui sous-tend l'écriture de la littérature spéculative (science-fiction et fantasy) aujourd'hui : la création d'un « monde secondaire », selon l'expression de J.R.R. Tolkien. Deux problèmes se posaient de prime abord. Premièrement, l'ensemble culturel et éditorial que recouvre l'expression « littérature spéculative » est relativement flou, du fait des problèmes de délimitation des genres et de la problématique culturelle plus générale (la littérature spéculative est-elle définie par des motifs littéraires, ou par l'appareil culturel qui l'entoure ?). Deuxièmement, un « monde secondaire » est-il uniquement un univers inventé entièrement différent ou détaché du monde réel, ou peut-il recouper le monde réel, etc. ? La littérature spéculative étant un genre foisonnant et en pleine évolution, j'ai pris le parti de ne pas donner de réponses définitives. Plutôt que de tenter de tracer des frontières, j'ai cherché à mettre en évidence les différents éléments dont se constituent les mondes secondaires : les traditions du genre sur lesquels les auteurs s'appuient pour transmettre la vision d'un univers original à leurs lecteurs, entre mise en avant de l'originalité et utilisation d'éléments connus comme soubassement, ainsi que la vision particulière de l'histoire, de la géographie et de la place de l'humanité dans le monde que les auteurs développent. Cette réflexion se veut située à la fois en amont et en aval de l'acte d'écriture. Elle se conclut sur les questions qui se posent aux auteurs contemporains : questions de renouvellement du genre, ou d'ouverture sur les autres médias, en particulier ceux que pratiquent les amateurs. / I endeavoured to study a phenomenon underlying contemporary speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy): the creation of a ‘secondary world', to use J.R.R. Tolkien's phrasing. I had to solve two preliminary problems. First, the cultural and economic phenomenon that speculative fiction represents has a blurry outline, questions regarding genre delimitation and wider cultural problems (is speculative fiction defined only by a number of literary patterns, or by the whole cultural apparatus that goes with it?) being difficult to answer. Secondly, does the notion secondary worlds only apply to invented worlds that are entirely different or detached from the real world, or can it be applied to texts that take place at least partly in the real world, etc.? Speculative fiction being a diverse genre that has been steadily evolving for years, I have chosen to avoid giving definitive answers to those questions. Instead of looking for boundaries, I have tried to emphasise the various building blocks of secondary worlds in speculative fiction: the traditions of the genre authors rely on to convey their view of an original universe to their readers, in a dialogue between known elements used as a foundation and the idiosyncratic view of history, geography and the place of mankind in the particular secondary world developed by the author. In an attempt to open this study to the contemporary practice of world-building, I have concluded with the questions that speculative fiction authors face today: how to renew the tropes of the genre, how speculative fiction pervades other media, in particular the practices of fans.

過往研究者主要從主題、文化意涵等角度詮釋臺灣科幻小說的內容，鮮有從宏觀角度探討科幻小說創作與臺灣文學發展的關係。本文以為臺灣科幻小說與臺灣文學的「本土」論述密切相關。科幻小說是源自西方的文學類型(literary genre)，它擅於探討跨越國族的普世議題，臺灣作家往往藉由引介和創作科幻小說，開拓他們創作的「世界視野」，並檢討「本土」論述中的民族主義情結。故此，臺灣科幻小說特別強調文化全球化對作家反思臺灣歷史和地域文化的重要性。在全球化的語境下，作家必須正視外國文化對臺灣「本土」的影響，並積極思考臺灣文學與世界文學共同的創作方向。 / 為了深入探討臺灣科幻小說對「本土」議題的反思，本文以三位作家的科幻創作為例，具體呈現科幻小說「從『本土』到世界」的發展過程：(一) 七、八十年代期間，張系國(1944- )以科幻小說審視鄉土小說中的民族主義情結，同時追溯對外省籍作家的身份認同極為重要的國共分裂史；(二) 八、九十年代期間，林燿德(1962-1996)以科幻小說檢討「本土」論述的暴力性質，同時以深受日本流行文化影響的年輕作家的立場，回顧日據時期的殖民歷史；(三) 二千年以後，吳明益(1971- )以科幻小說檢視「本土」論述中的族群文化，探討原住民與自然共處的方式，同時超越特定族群的立場，想像南島民族(Austronesian, 即原住民)遷徙的歷史。通過上述三位作家的科幻創作，本文希望指出臺灣科幻小說逐漸超越「本土」論述的局限，彰顯其普世價值。 / In the previous studies on Taiwanese science fiction, researches mainly adopted the thematic or cultural approaches among the others to interpret the science fiction. Seldom did they study them macroscopically and investigate the relationship between this kind of creative work and Taiwanese Literature. This thesis proposes that there exists an intertwined relationship between Taiwanese science fiction and the "native" discourse of Taiwanese Literature. Science fiction, as a literary genre, comes from the West and is known for its ability to transcend the boundaries of nation and ethnicity to discuss the universal topics. By introducing this genre and creating this kind of literary works, those writers open up the "globe perspective" in their works and examine the Nationalist sentiment in the "native" discourse. Hence, Taiwanese science fiction places heavy emphasis on the influence of Cultural Globalization upon Taiwanese writers’ reflections on Taiwanese history and culture. Under the context of Globalization, writers must face the influence of foreign cultures on "native" Taiwan and actively contemplate the common direction for creative works in Taiwanese and World Literature. / To further discuss how Taiwanese science fiction’s reflection upon the concept of ‘Native’, this thesis will study the science fiction of three writers to illustrate the Taiwanese science fiction’s development from "Native" to "Global" as follows: (1) In the 70s and 80s, Chang Shi-kuo (b.1944) examines the Nationalist sentiment in Nativist Literature through Science Fiction while he also traces the history of the separation between Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party, which is of vital importance to the immigrant writers’ identity; (2) Lin Yao-de (1962-1996) explores the violent nature of the "nativist" discourse by science fiction. Meanwhile, under the influence of Japanese popular culture over the young writers, he also reviews Taiwanese History during the Japanese occupation; (3) After the millennium, Wu Ming-yi (b.1971) investigates the ethnic culture in the "native" discourse and examines the aborigine’s ways to cohabit with the nature. He also transcends the boundary of a specific ethnic group to create the imaginative history of relocation of the Austronesian (that is the aborigines). Through examining the science fiction of the above writers, the thesis would illustrate how the Taiwanese science fiction is transcending the limits of the particular "native" discourse and displays its universality. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / 何嘉俊. / Parallel title from English abstract. / Thesis (M.Phil.) Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2014. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-155). / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / He Jiajun.