Taylor, Aaron – World without end: Historicity and the contemporary science fiction cinema.
This thesis is an analysis of North American science fiction cinema, from 1985-1999, in which the role of history and historicity is evaluated. Time has always been a central preoccupation of SF, but the thematic importance of the past as temporality has long been undermined by critics. History plays a much more constructive role in contemporary SF than previous critics have allowed. The literal "presence" of signifiers of the "past" services narratives which are often fundamentally moralistic in nature. Science fiction's historicity is employed to prevent the alienation of "future shock" - the estranging tendencies of new technologies - which necessitate new modes of epistemological and ontological adaptation. In such films, history plays the vital function of conscience. Representations of familiar futures are not necessarily conservative, but are indicative of a development in SF that refuses to celebrate progress at the expense of history.
Dirección de descarga:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?2dduyxmgdqh
- Sanders, Steven (ed.) - The Philosophy of Science Fiction Film
The essays in this volume explore some of the ideas and possibilities that science fiction films take as their starting points. Since the essays are philosophical, they aim to increase readers’ understanding and appreciation by identifying the philosophical implications and assumptions of The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Terminator, and a dozen other science fiction film classics. The questions these films raise are addressed by philosophers, film theorists, and other scholars who take a variety of approaches and perspectives. No single method or school of thought predominates. Of course, there is a consensus among the contributors that intelligent and well-informed discussion of films can lead to greater appreciation and understanding of them. And each contributor would no doubt agree that it is desirable for readers to have a firsthand acquaintance with the film he or she has chosen to write about.
Dirección de descarga:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yoynm53lynm
Noonan, Bonnie – Representation of women in the “B” science fiction films of the 1950´s
This project shows how central representations of women in science were to the “B” science fiction films of the 1950s and uses these films as valuable indicators for cultural analysis. I argue that the emergence of the modern American science fiction film in 1950 combined with the situation of post-W.W.II women in science to create a genre explicitly amenable to exploring the tension between a woman’s place in the home and her place in the work force, particularly in the fields of science.
Out of a context of 114 “B” science fiction films produced between 1950 and 1966, I offer substantial readings of seven films that feature women in science. Using changing gender roles after W.W.II as an analytical focus, each chapter explores relationality within films, among films, and between films and the culture in which they were produced, distributed, and consumed in order to make visible overall gender patterns, kinship systems, and possibilities for imagining change. The conclusion to the project uses the conceptual framework that has been established to suggest possibilities for a more thorough analysis of the American science fiction film genre, in particular as that genre resonates with concerns relevant to feminist theory.
Dirección de descarga:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zxoznzr2ti2
Girard, Theresa – Alternate futures
Science fiction, for many decades, was dominated by male writers writing
about past, present, and future patriarchal societies, and these authors became
visionaries about the direction human society was taking. As women became
more interested in science and science fiction, some male authors attempted to
incorporate this "new" woman into the futures about which they were writing.
Because society has changed so drastically in the decades since the 1960´s, it is important to analyze the characterization of women in mainstream science fiction novels and visual media. As women are reflected in various stages of visionary or cautionary modes, it may be possible to determine how women can or should prepare themselves for the twenty-first century.
This study will be a comparison which will focus on four science fiction
novels and their visual adaptations by means of formal critical works and
personal analysis. In comparing and contrasting science fiction novels and
visual adaptations, it is of great benefit to be able to look at the filmic
interpretations of the novels in question. In the filmic versions, the influence of
society is seen more clearly because filmmakers adapt novels in such a way as
to draw the largest possible audience. When one determines what society views as important, intriguing, and/or interesting, the findings can be extrapolated to show that the influence of a specific segment of society on a specific author at a specific time can be very different than on society as a whole. It is also possible to see how societal views may differ from the author's view. In this way, a determination can be made as to the validity of the visionary or cautionary aspects of each work. The hypothesized results will show that the films are skewed in terms of the filmmakers' views on society's stand on patriarchy versus feminism, rather than, the author's presumed intent.
Dirección de descarga:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zymg12myiln
- Thomas, Anne-Marie - It Came From Outer Space (The virus, cultural anxiety, and speculative fiction)
This study seeks to explore and interrogate the “viral reality” of the 1990s, in which the
virus, heavily indebted to representations of AIDS for its metaphorical power, emerged
as a prominent agent in science and popular culture. What becomes apparent in both
fictional and non-fictional texts of this era, however, is that the designation of “virus”
transcends specific and material viral phenomena, making the virus itself a touchstone
for modern preoccupations with self and other. As constituted by the human body’s
interaction with pathogenic agents, the binary of self and other may be deconstructed by
an interrogation of the virus itself, a permeable and mutable body that lends itself to any
number of interpretive possibilities. A uniquely liminal agent, the virus refuses
categorization as either life or non-life. However, it is not the liminality of the pathogen
that allows for this deconstruction, which serves to frustrate such boundaries in the first
place. Rather, the notion that viruses are (always) already a part of who we are as
human beings, and that “self” is not necessarily a self-enclosed autonomous entity,
suggests that the binary cannot hold. A virus is unique; an insider/outsider that crosses
artificial boundaries, it destabilizes the boundaries themselves, and thus the traditional
framework of self and other. Examining viral accounts in popular science writings, film,
television, advertisements, philosophy, science fiction, and naturalistic fiction, this study
examines the ways in which science and popular culture have characterized both the
virus and its psychological and material effects, and suggests that the pathogen-assignifier
may be read in ways that point to the virus’s utopian potential as a theoretical
category.
Dirección de descarga:
http://www.mediafire.com/?zdyya4m1omw
Leslie, Christopher – Social Science Fiction (.pdf)
Through a cultural history of social science fiction, I consider one of the
permutations of the “golden age” of science fiction, social science fiction. It is born
in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and becomes increasingly prominent in the
aftermath of World War 2 as a literature that can excite a moral response in
engineers and scientists and help individuals adapt to change. Social science
fiction uses mass media to encourage a public-sphere debate about the
interaction of technology and society.
Dirección de descarga:
http://www.mediafire.com/?lddyogtm2zj
