Aliens and Others: Science Fiction, Feminism and Postmodernism.

Abstract

This study explores the radical potential of feminist science fiction to question dominant cultural definitions of difference and identity, self and other. It examines the way in which the generic conventions of science fiction are subverted so that notions of both genre and gender identity are redefined. The book also considers the ways in which both feminism and postmodernism have enabled women science fiction writers to challenge the common sense nature of social and cultural practices and institutions. postmodernism's sustained critique of the grand narratives of western culture is paralleled by feminist analysis of the patriarchal nature of the dominant discourses of that culture. While these are not the same projects, they are nevertheless connected, both by their mutual recognition of the partiality of dominant cultural practices and by their potential to develop an interventionist cultural politics.