Syftet med uppsatsen är att studera de två huvudkaraktärerna i Marie Lus Legendtrilogi för att undersöka om och i så fall hur deras egenskaper är formade av deras klass- och könstillhörighet, vad som möjliggör eller orsakar deras klassresor samt hur de påverkas av att röra sig mellan olika samhällsklasser. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkt är att det inte enbart går att analysera en maktordning utan att även ta hänsyn till andra maktordningar. Jag har utgått ifrån Maria Nikolajevas uppställning av stereotypt manliga och kvinnliga egenskaper, Roberta Seelinger Trites teorier om hur makt fungerar både förtryckande och frigörande för subjektet, samt Sanna Lehtonens teorier om normbildning kring klass som identitetskategori. I uppsatsen kommer jag fram till att karaktärernas egenskaper är mer kopplade till deras klass, och mindre till deras kön. Flickan från överklassen sätter större värde på sig själv, medan pojken från underklassen värderar sig själv lägre. Hon har även haft tillgång till utbildning som gjort henne snabb, stark och rationell, medan han inte är lika tränad som hon är och därmed mer känslostyrd. Klassresor möjliggörs av socialt och kulturellt kapital samt trogenhet gentemot landet de lever i. Karaktärerna påverkas av möten med andra klasser på så sätt att de omvärderar synen på sig själva samt förhandlar med den makt de blivit tilldelade.

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This thesis seeks to show that contemporary speculative fiction films both present and act as agents for an understanding of the human as increasingly economically rational. This conception of the human focuses on humanist values that project a vision of human exceptionalism into the future. Expanding on Michel Foucault’s definition of neoliberalism, this thesis follows its connection to biotechnology and the transhuman subject created through biotechnological intervention, arguing that the films Limitless (2011), Avatar (2009), and District 9 (2009) depict a vision of the human as something that can be calculated and therefore optimized, moving toward the transhuman goal of perfectibility. / Graduate

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Within the latitude of a science-fictional elsewhere and elsewhen, women can establish their own social norms and accepted praxis. The modification encountered in alternate feminist spacetimes specifically incorporate many new ideologies concerning motherhood. Central to this discussion is the means by which feminist authors regard the influences of patriarchal institutions and the subsequent changes in society because of, or in spite of, these changes. The male-dominated fields of technological patriarchy (reproduction and fertility "specialists") and the military, for example, are areas upon which feminist authors speculate. Three feminist strategies for coping with a patriarchal social order, as seen in the works of science-fiction, are entrance into the male world and attempts to change it, competition in the patriarchal world on its own terms and total retreat from an oppressive society, accompanied by the creation of a feminist utopian otherworld. These feminist spacetimes share a number of convictions. Most important, conception is never an unwilled experience. The "maternal instinct", is redefined as a calling which, in some cases, extends to males and non-biological mothers. Traits that are salient in the childraisers are those which are mirrored by these alternate feminist spacetimes as a whole and which contribute to the definition of these societies as utopias. The treatment and/or possession of children as property is frowned upon in the novels. Some points of dissent amongst feminist SF authors include the existence of technology in an utopian or dystopian future for motherhood, and whether or not males are permitted and/or encouraged to participate in society as a whole and more precisely in the experience of mothering. The dystopia, for its part, can thus be regarded as a warning against the encroachment of rampant patriarchal enterprises through their representation of the extrapolation of male-centred value systems. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Doctor of Philosophy / In this thesis I discuss feminist science fiction as a literature that explores a variety of alternative social realities. This provides the site to explore alternative notions of the heroic inspired by feminist critiques of the traditional heroic, which come from feminist philosophical, as well as literary critical sources. Alternative notions of the heroic offer a shift in perspective from a specific heroic identity to the events the characters are involved in. The shift to events is made precisely because that is where the temporal is located and dynamic change occurs. Events are where 'becoming' alternatively heroic occurs: in the interaction between a character and the environment.

Proefschrift Universiteit van Amsterdam. / Met lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Engels.

Univ., Magisterarbeit, 2002--Frankfurt (Main)

Diss. Linköping : Univ., 2003.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 1997. / Title from title screen (viewed Apr. 15, 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of English, Faculty of Arts. Degree awarded 1997; thesis submitted 1996. Includes: The James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award list. Includes bibliography. Also available in print form.