Critics and historians of science fiction widely recognize the genre's importance as a
forum for political ideas during the 1950s. But the political role of science fiction
diminished during the 1960s, overshadowing the ongoing involvement of sf writers in
future-related debates. This paper employs biography, autobiography, memoir, archival
papers, recordings, and secondary sources to demonstrate that sf writers continued to
discuss the future and its potential problems after the 1950s. Judith Merril and Isaac
Asimov, two giants in science fiction, form the core of this paper's focus. Merril and
Asimov began to discuss the future in essays, interviews, and documentaries in the 1960s.
By the early 1970s, Merril and Asimov were examining the then-emerging problems of
overpopulation and planetary ecology in mainstream non-fiction. Merril and Asimov
demonstrate that sf writers still addressed political and social issues in the 1960s and
early 1970s - even if their involvement increasingly took place outside the boundaries of
science fiction literature. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/16599 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | LeBlanc, Michael |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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