Bridgitte Barclay - Gender and Environment in Science Fiction

Recent Titles

Gender and Environment in Science Fiction edited by Christy Tidwell and Bridgitte Barclay

Ecological Crisis and Cultural Representation in Latin America: Ecocritical Perspectives on Art, Film, and Literature edited by Mark Anderson and Zelia M. Bora

Perspectives on Art, Film, and Literature edited by Mark Anderson and Zelia M. Bora

The Ethics and Rhetoric of Invasion Ecology edited by Ames Stanescu and Kevin Cummings

Ecotheology in the Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Divine and Nature edited by Melissa Brotton

Coexistentialism and the Unbearable Intimacy of Ecological Emergency edited by Sam Mickey

T.S. Eliot, Poetry, and Earth: The Name of the Lotos Rose by Etienne Terblanche

Ecofeminism in Dialogue edited by Douglas A. Vakoch and Sam Mickey

The Image of the River in Latin/o American Literature: Written in the Water edited by Jeanie Murphy and Elizabeth G. Rivero

Rhetorical Animals: Boundaries of the Human in the Study of Persuasion edited by Kristian Bjrkdahl and Alex C. Parrish

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham Boulder New York London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

ISBN 978-1-4985-8057-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4985-8058-8 (electronic)

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

We are thankful to the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE), particularly the Ecomedia Special Interest Group and our many friends and colleagues there; Ken Roemer, Tim Morris, and all of our mentors; Aurora University; South Dakota School of Mines & Technology; our loved ones (especially Dominick, Sophia, Elliott, Djuna, Neil, and Jonathan); and our friendship that can withstand (and thrive in) Ph.D. tears, twelve-state road trips, rough dorm room conference accommodations, and book editing.

Many of our contributors cite Stacy Alaimo, so this book is indebted to her work in many ways. Beyond how her writing has influenced scholars in environmental and gender studies, though, we also are personally indebted to her. Material gender studies and materialist environmentalism speak to real-world issues of justice. With these concepts and with Stacys mentorship from graduate work to present, we became the teachers and scholars we are now and are still growing to be. Stacys writing, her teaching and guidance, and her continued support and friendship are impossible to articulate here fully. Her respect for us, beginning even when we were graduate studentstaking us to coffee and lunch, letting us read her manuscripts, inviting us to speak to her classes, guiding us through the job search process, introducing us to other scholars as colleagues, helping us learn to celebrate curiosity even if it led to a dead end for the moment, teaching us that questioning is never a waste of time, and showing solidarity with us in our professional and personal liveshas shaped us. So much of this influences the work we do and how we interact with our own students and others.

Bridgitte Barclay and Christy Tidwell

The image on the cover of this book sets up a number of issues in gender and environment and science fiction (sf). It mimics a Euro-Christian Edenic narrative with a white male-female pair, the woman reaching for fruit while the man looks on. This mimicking of a creation myth is set on what may be an alien planet with a rocket shining in the background. Just those simple elements of man, woman, and fruit evoke problematic narratives of human dominion over animals and plants, naturalized heterosexuality, equations of women with nature, and (here) colonization and whiteness, even in an otherworldly setting. The midcentury sf pulp style of the image, too, elicits memories of traditional sex and gender roles, racial segregation, and an often uncritical hope in science and technology, among other things. Thus, the image works well to set up the connections and problems that this book addresses concerning gender, sex, sexual orientation, race, and nonhuman nature in sf. Given the weight of these memories, this image also serves to illustrate our need for new narratives that are both inclusive and intersectional.

Though there is a great deal of problematic sf, there is also a solid body of sf that provides such inclusive and intersectional narratives, and gender and ecocritical approaches enable further study of sf texts that may not intentionally engage with them. Ursula K. Le Guins The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Bryan Forbess The Stepford Wives (1975), Ridley Scotts Alien (1979), Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale (1985), and Octavia E. Butlers Dawn (1987) are just a few of the sf books and films already included in the gender studies and environmental literary and filmic canons. More recent additions include Alfonso Cuarns Children of Men (2006), Kim Stanley Robinsons 2312 (2012), and Ann Leckies Ancillary Justice (2013). And many texts are ripe for ecocritical and gender readings in sf, as we demonstrate in this collection, because science fiction texts often ask questions such as