Science Fiction Elements Research Articles

The Broken Human–Object Continuum: The Technological Future and Socialist Contradictions in Rhapsody of the Ming Tombs Reservoir (1958)

Abstract The third section of Rhapsody of the Ming Tombs Reservoir (Shisanling shuiku changxiangqu 十三陵水库畅想曲, 1958), the first film in Mao-era China to include elements of science fiction, envisions a technologically advanced future in the year 1978. While seemingly aligned with the rapid industrialization goal of the Great Leap Forward, the film’s techno-fantasy attracted blistering criticism. Focusing on the overlooked historical debate that followed the release of the film, this article argues that criticism regarding the visualization of a technological future reveals how seemingly legitimate imaginations of a communist future reflect internal contradictions within the socialist present. Reading the film and the debate it sparked within the context of technological development in the late 1950s, this article identifies one locus of criticism: the human–object relationship. During the construction of the reservoir, the film shows a harmonious human–object relationship, but the futuristic part of the film depicts that relationship as profoundly alienated. I argue that this discontinuity does not betray ignorance of or an intentional departure from socialist ideology; rather, it reflects ideological contradictions between intellectual and manual labor, egalitarianism and class difference, industrialization processes and revolutionary agendas. In its rhapsodic depiction of advanced devices that consolidate the division of knowledge, the film unintentionally lays bare a fundamental conflict that was undermining the socialist system in the real world.

Navigating the World of The Stranger (1979) After the Cultural Revolution: Unveiling Hong Kong Leftist Science Fiction Film by Bao Fang

Abstract After the Cultural Revolution, a period marked by a global retreat from radical politics and increased compromises, filmmakers in the Hong Kong leftist film industry faced financial challenges stemming from the studio’s struggles during the Cultural Revolution. Despite these difficulties, they ingeniously incorporated generic elements to captivate audiences, using popular genres as conduits for social commentary. The Stranger by Feng Huang Motion Picture company stands out, as director Bao Fang adeptly appropriated science fiction elements to adapt a real story of espionage in Hong Kong. The film signifies Bao’s transition from opera film and historical pictures to negotiating realist and science-fictional elements to convey social innuendo. Drawing inspiration from recent works by Mingwei Song and Seo-young Chu, my argument extends to explore how sci-fi serves as a mode of expression for geopolitical commentary. The film not only expresses concern over Soviet espionage and also reflects the fear over the collapse of grand narratives such as Enlightenment and Revolution.

“Hope, but also Danger”: A Conversation with Larissa Lai on not Going Back and the ‘Re’ of Recuperation

Larissa Lai is a poet, fiction writer and academic who holds a Canada Research Chair at the University of Calgary, where she directs The Insurgent Architects’ House for Creative Writing. She has authored nine books. Her most recent works are The Tiger Flu, Iron Goddess of Mercy and The Lost Century. She is a recipient of the Jim Duggins Novelist’s Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Otherwise Honor Book. She was recently awarded a Maria Zambrano Fellowship at the University of Huelva in Spain and has been actively engaged in cultural organizing, experimental poetry and speculative fiction communities since the 1980s. Her work often explores themes of identity intertwined with elements of science fiction and the fantastical imagination. This interview took place in Parque García Sanabria on 24th March 2023 during a visit of Larissa Lai to the University of La Laguna. This interview focuses on the convergence of history, myth and affects, providing a reflection on the circularity of time and the promise of happiness.

Analysis of Historical Views in The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary

As a highly regarded Chinese-American science fiction writer, Liu Yukun’s science fiction The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary published in 2012 combines science fiction elements with historical event against the background of Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army’s violent behavior in Harbin, showcasing the views of the East and West on Chinese traumatic history. This article combines new historicism to examine the relationship between history and individuals within the text, as well as the historical views upheld by all parties.

The Female Man ve The Left Hand of Darkness Romanlarında İkinci Dalga Feminizmin Yansıması

Women science fiction writers of the 60s and 70s reflected second wave feminist ideologies in their fictional works. The distinctive narrative techniques of science fiction genre brought out various aspects of feminist ideas in different ways. Issues related to gender and sex were embedded in the elements of science fiction such as parallel universes, androgynies, intersex, mindreading, planets, aliens, and inventions. Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and Joanna Russ’s The Female Man (1975), through these elements, raise questions about gender equality, body politics, ethics, and social constructions. These science fiction novels have themes that are closely related to the central texts debated among second wave feminists such as Simon de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949) and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963). Le Guin and Russ apply feminist theories to unconventional lives and societies, whose uniqueness or oddity helps readers think outside of the box. By presenting alternative societies, they unfold how male domination can cause sexual objectification and gender inequality, and anatomic differences in science fiction worlds creates an awareness concerning constructed gender roles. Moreover, the second wave feminists’ emphasis on sexual freedom, birth control, and marriage are illustrated through the multi-faceted outcomes of these multi-directional utopic and dystopic societies. This paper aims to bring together second wave feminist ideas and science fiction through an examination of two works, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Female Man, both of which present resisting interpretations of traditional gender issues. Unorthodox approaches to gender, the peculiar structure of the societies, and body politics will be analyzed through the narratives and elements of science fiction. Further-more, this paper will illustrate how these novels challenge conventional definitions of gender and sex in the light of second wave feminism.

Ian Mcewan’ın Benim Gibi Makineler Romanında Simülasyon Yoluyla Anlamı Şekillendirme ve Alternatif Gerçeklik Oluşturma

Ian McEwan uses elements of science-fiction and puts forwards some vague issues about artificial intelligence in Machines Like Me, thus leaving the reader in a technologically advanced, sci-fi utopia dominated by hyperrealism, subjectivity, and consumerism, which later turns into a moral dystopia with discrepancies of humankind’s interaction with AI humanoid robots. He offers a retro-futuristic universe where notions such as morality, human nature, and free will are challenged in an environment generated by postmodern tactics of historiographic metafiction and intertextuality as well as simulation. McEwan also provides us with a postmodern picture of contemporary individuals and conditions in which thin lines between the intrusion of artificial intelligence into our lives and the representation of truth and reality are blurred.
 Making use of theoretical concepts such as postmodern simulation, historicity, and production of knowledge under how McEwan presents the major subject matters in the novel with the reflection and depiction of a futuristic world of artificial intelligence, this article tries to answer the questions about the condition of the postmodern individual who struggles with the issues of discerning reality and truth haunted by the existence and intrusion of AI Adams and Eves.

The Giver’s Ethical Choices—Analysis of The Giver from the Perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism

The Giver is a novel published in 1993 by Lois Lowry, an American female writer. The novel tells a story of a future community where people’s lives are arranged and regulated according to their scientific choices, but at the same time they have lost their freedom and right to choose. Since it was published, the novel has been analyzed and studied by a number of scholars, focusing on the growth of the young protagonist Jonas, the science fiction elements of the novel, and its dystopian perspective. This article analyzes both the scientific choices of the community and the Giver’s ethical choices from the perspective of ethical literary criticism. It reads carefully into the correct ethical choices made by the Giver when facing the incorrect scientific ones, revealing the benevolence, wisdom, courage, and sense of responsibility possessed by the Giver, and highlighting his value as well. The article reiterates that only the choices in line with the ethical selection criteria of “truthfulness, goodness and beauty” of human civilization can be regarded as right ones. At the same time, the article’s research further prompts readers to reflect on the future of humanity and what to do in the face of scientific and ethical choices.

All the (West)World’s a Stage: HBO’s Westworld as Metatext—Intertextuality, Genre, Seriality, Format

With roots in an earlier film about well-heeled human guests in an android-populated theme park modeled after an Old West experience, Westworld is a recent offering in HBO’s ongoing pursuit of quality television. Combining Western and science-fiction elements, its intertextual relationship to genre is unusually foregrounded. This intertextuality takes on added dimensions in its more recent adaptation. Furthermore, as an ongoing television program, it adds considerations of seriality and format. This article examines how these elements of intertextuality, seriality, format, and the specific embodiments of genre reveal the series’s function as a metatext, as a series commenting on and critiquing the narrative television series. Westworld’s overdetermined genre performance reveals a postmodern parody of genre itself. By simultaneously performing and playing with notions of genre, Westworld embodies the doubly-conscious, neo-baroque text. It goes well beyond its relationship to genre, including self-conscious seriality. The host loops offer a conspicuous site of repetition and difference, an aspect necessary to the aesthetic experience and pleasures of the postmodern audience. Ultimately, Westworld’s central conceit of a genre-based theme park offers a pointed critique of the television format as both a culturally specific and fungible commodity in the globalized media space.

Psychological Profile of a Serial Killer (Based on the Novel “Silence” by Thomas Raab)

The research deals with the issue of genre hybridization in the novel “Silence – Chronicle of a Killer” written by a contemporary Austrian writer Thomas Raab. An examination of the novel's composition and structure, as a text in motion, has been accomplished in the article. The novel “Silence” is an excellent illustration of how the genre of adventure has been adapted to include elements of science fiction. This novel is a love tale, a rural life saga, a formation narrative, and a psychological thriller all in one. As a fictionalized account of the life of a serial murderer with hypersensitive hearing who became a legend for his mental torment and suffering, it serves both as a biography and a thriller. Novelist Raab uses elements from classic horror novels like Frankenstein, German romantics, in particular, G. Kleist, the tale of Casper Hauser, and detective novels like Friedrich Durrenmatt's "Promise" to tell the story of Casper Hauser's disappearance in his book. A new aesthetic experience may be formed at various degrees of identification ranging from naive perception to higher levels of literary reception. Concentration is required for poetic and philosophical substance. Michel Focalut's nomadism, marginality, and authoritarian power rhetoric have been discussed in this article. The novel's ultimate content has been disclosed as the aphesis torment, emotional sublimation, as the birth of an artwork and, at the same time, death of the author, who exposes discourses, accountable for creating texts that are allocated to him.

Modern Possibilities and Limits of Artificial Intelligence Introduction into the Justice System

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are gradually becoming a part of our everyday life. From the category of elements of science fiction, they have moved into the category of elements of public administration, law enforcement, technology, and culture. The study is devoted to the problems of using AI in the system of justice. The author identifies current opportunities for implementing AI in court proceedings, explores the world experience and the content of discussions about the limits of such implementation. As a result of generalization of the existing ideas about the use of AI in justice, three concepts are identified — conservative, extensive and intensive, each of which represents the future of the judicial system in its own way regarding the development of information technologies. The conservative concept is focused on deepening digitalization of the judicial system and development of electronic justice. The extensive concept implies limited use of AI in the justice system without its direct participation in decision-making, but only with the aim of facilitating the work of judges. The intensive concept involves in-depth implementation of AI in the justice system, when AI either works on a par with a judge, or, more or less, replaces the judge.

Visions of Artificial Intelligence and Robots in Science Fiction: a computational analysis.

Driven by the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and anthropomorphic robotic systems, the various possibilities and risks of such technologies have become a topic of urgent discussion. Although science fiction (SF) works are often cited as references for visions of future developments, this framework of discourse may not be appropriate for serious discussions owing to technical inaccuracies resulting from its reliance on entertainment media. However, these science fiction works could help researchers understand how people might react to new AI and robotic systems. Hence, classifying depictions of artificial intelligence in science fiction may be expected to help researchers to communicate more clearly by identifying science fiction elements to which their works may be similar or dissimilar. In this study, we analyzed depictions of artificial intelligence in SF together with expert critics and writers. First, 115 AI systems described in SF were selected based on three criteria, including diversity of intelligence, social aspects, and extension of human intelligence. Nine elements representing their characteristics were analyzed using clustering and principal component analysis. The results suggest the prevalence of four distinctive categories, including human-like characters, intelligent machines, helpers such as vehicles and equipment, and infrastructure, which may be mapped to a two-dimensional space with axes representing intelligence and humanity. This research contributes to the public relations of AI and robotic technologies by analyzing shared imaginative visions of AI in society based on SF works.

Introduction

Introduction

INTERPRETATION OF MAN AND THE WORLD IN THE CREATIVITY OF ALIKHAN ZHAKSYLYK

The article presents an overview of the main themes and literary processes taking place in contemporary Kazakh literature, for the first time in the literary aspect, the works of one of the Kazakh authors Alikhan Zhaksylyk are considered. The poetic specifics of the writer’s stories “Loneliness in hell”, “Heartache”, “Wingless dream” and “Six continents” are analyzed. On the basis of various methods, the problem of ideological continuity in the named stories and works of other authors, the process of revival of cultural, literary and artistic processes and the specifics of perception, vision, perception of the world by the writer are revealed. The influence of the novels of Dante Alighieri, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Yukio Mishima, Franz Kafka, Kozuo Ishiguro and Tolen Abdikuly in world literature on the compositional parts of the author’s stories, the creation of a system of characters, some artistic, philosophical reflections are reflected in a comparative aspect. Well-known motifs, characters and storylines left by the representatives of this literature in the history of fiction in the works of the author were analyzed. The main themes in the works of A. Zhaksylyk, which excite him as an author, and the influence of science and technology on strengthening the poetics of his works are determined. The phenomenon of science and technology, which is rapidly developing at the present time, the author’s judgments and assumptions regarding its activities in society, were discussed on the basis of the stories received in the study. In addition, the activities of mystical and science fiction elements in the writer’s stories “Heartache” and “Loneliness in hell” were analyzed. Throughout the work, the operational activity of the literary devices reflected in such a merger is explained. The levels of the source text referred to by the author, the system of characters and the category of pronouns are considered, which served as the basis for organizing the compositional units of the works. Very similar main characters and actions of the characters in the stories of the writers T. Abdikuly “The right hand” and A. Zhaksylyk “Heartache”, as well as other compositional parts, were compared in the form of tables. Artistic techniques characteristic of the author’s individual work and shortcomings associated with the organization of the work were noted.The main sources were revealed – samples of world literature and the works of the writer, studied by the writer in the process of developing his personal creativity. On the basis of such differentiation, forecasts were made of the main themes and literary processes taking place in contemporary Kazakh literature, poetic searches, directions of development of literature in general, its connections with world literature and phenomena that are of interest to authors. The article focuses on the creative connection between A.Zhaksylyk and representatives of the above-mentioned world literature.

Reversing the Middle Passage: The Afrofuturist Aesthetic of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon

Reversing the Middle Passage: The Afrofuturist Aesthetic of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon Ousseynou B. Traore (bio) Before looking at Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and how it reflects Afrofuturism, it may be helpful first to define that concept itself. According to Alex Zamalin, “[Afrofuturism] has long been associated with science fiction and technology in the future, replete with robots and supercomputers” (10). While there are no robots and supercomputers in Song of Solomon, there is plenty about the past, the future, and their complex back-and-forth interactions. Ytasha L. Womack offers the following: Whether through literature, visual arts, music, or grassroots organizing, Afrofuturism redefines culture and notions of blackness for today and the future. Both an artistic aesthetic and a framework of critical theory, Afrofuturism combines elements of science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, Afrocentricity, and magic realism with non-Western beliefs. In some cases, it’s a total re-envisioning of the past and speculation about the future rife with cultural critiques. (9, my emphasis) Womack’s definition has the advantage of being deeply rooted in debates and theories that demarcate the recognizably Afrocentric orientation and also the African and African Diaspora myths, beliefs systems, and traditions of spirituality and magic that inform the aesthetic of Song of Solomon. On the other hand, science fiction and technology, as generally understood, admittedly do not play much of a role in the novel. However, in his essay “Black to the Future,” African-American science fiction writer Walter Mosley states: that “Any book that offers an alternative account for the way things are catches my attention. . . . This is because I believe that the world we live in is so much larger, has so many more possibilities, than our simple sciences describe” (405). Mosley is critical of the limitations of what he calls “our simple sciences”—perhaps meaning Western or Eurocentric ones—and instead promotes an “alternative account,” science fiction, for the way that things in a global world are “so much larger” than the Eurocentric West. Mosley then goes on to list a few major voices in the mainstream of black speculative and science fiction, such as Octavia E. Butler, Samuel R. Delaney, Steven Barnes, and concludes: “There are also flashes of the genre in such respected writers as Toni Morrison and Derrick Bell” (406). Womack and Mosley thus confirm and complement each other’s critical thought and open the way for a variety of reflections. Building on the foundation provided by these two critics, I propose to examine what Mosley calls “flashes of [End Page 122] the genre” in Morrison’s Song of Solomon, which I would describe as exemplifying an “Afromythic” literary mode within the global theory of Afrofuturism. In Song of Solomon, Pilate is the ancestor. For Morrison, “the concept of the ancestor is not necessarily as a parent but as an abiding, interested, benevolent, guiding presence that is yours and is concerned about you” (Davis 227). Pilate embodies a huge library of West and West-Central African cultures that reflect on the past, the present, and the future; she arrives in Michigan with a green tarpaulin bag containing the skeletal remains of her murdered father and refers to it as her “inheritance” (97; 163–64). But Pilate is also the central bearer of the concept of Afrofuturism in Song of Solomon as she becomes its principal activating force that governs Mr. Smith’s flight at the beginning of the novel as well as Milkman’s soaring jump on Solomon’s Leap at the end. Her fantastic “self-birth” and lack of a navel mark her as one not born of a human being but self-created or created by forces beyond human knowledge. Nevertheless, Afrofuturism as a speculative process in this novel does not involve what is usually described as science fiction and does not depend on Western technology or science. Rather, it is activated by creative African knowledge and memory systems, especially the myth of “Flying Africans” who flew back to Africa as a form of resistance to slavery and a way of reversing the Middle Passage and its aftermath. Two philosophical expressions or models from the African experience come to mind. One...

Voyage to Innumerable Star Worlds: A Forgotten 19th-century Japanese Political Scientific Novel with a Radical Message

ABSTRACT In 1882 Nukina Shunichi, a heretofore unknown ex-samurai from Hikone-fief, published his debut novel Voyage to Innumerable Star Worlds. The novel fits within the theoretical narrative according to which, following exposure to Western literature, early science fiction budded within political novels in Meiji-era Japan. Like other political works with science fiction elements from that era, this novel demonstrates negotiations between traditional literary tools and imported styles, content and themes. It is, however, remarkable from a thematic point of view. Nukina presents a critical futuristic vision of industrial progress, which is intertwined with his broader political message that describes the loss of social equality and liberty during the civilising process and ends with a utopian vision of anarchy. It is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, pro-anarchism declarations written in Japan. By combining biographical research and textual analysis that are contextualised within literary and historical settings, this novel is a case study of the nuanced local reworking of cross-cultural flows during a period characterised by the influx of new tools and ideas. Moreover, it enables a glimpse into the active political lives of the anonymous Meiji ex-samurai, and into the wide range of their political deliberations.

Humanity in Science Fiction Movies: A Comparative Analysis of Wandering Earth, The Martian and Interstellar

Wandering Earth, released in 2019, is regarded as a phenomenal film that opens the door to Chinese science fiction movies. The Chinese story in the film has aroused the resonance of domestic audiences, but failed to get high marks on foreign film review websites. In contrast, in recent years, science fiction films in European and American countries are still loved by audiences at home and abroad, such as The Martian and Interstellar, which have both commercial and artistic values. It can be seen that the cultural communication of western science fiction movies is more successful than that of China. Taking the above three works as examples, this paper analyzes the doomsday plot, the beauty of returning home and the role shaping of scientific women in science fiction movies from the perspective of the organic combination of “hard-core elements of science fiction” and “soft value in humanity”, in an attempt to help the foreign cultural communication of domestic science fiction movies. As an attempt to facilitate the global development of Chinese science fiction, this paper concludes that certain Chinese traditional cultural spirit needs further spreading, that Chinese science fiction and humanity should be combined in a more natural way, and that in particular, female character need in depth and multi-dimensional interpretation.

From Afrofuturism to Africanfuturism: Contemporary Expressions within Popular Culture

The futuristic representation of the world is an important aspect of understanding contemporary cultural processes, literary and musical trends, and artistic activities, both in Africa and in the African Diaspora. In order to examine effectively the development of the futurist path, I will briefly trace two categories: ‘Afrofuturism’ and ‘Africanfuturism’ (as proposed by Nnedi Okorafor), containing elements of science-fiction, speculative fiction, non-Western history, technology, and fantasy. In this article I will discuss how the concept of Afrofuturism has evolved, how techno-utopian visions of the future are created, illustrating terrestrial and cosmic existence, while extracting knowledge about ancestors, mythology and cosmology. Is it a kind of cultural script – based on ephemerality, temporality and imagination – that has been adapted to the conditions of modern popular culture in Sub-Saharan Africa? Or is it an accurate form of crossing time-space boundaries and discourses?

СИРАНО ДЕ БЕРЖЕРАК КАК ПРЕДШЕСТВЕННИК НАУЧНО-ФАНТАСТИЧЕСКОЙ ПРОЗЫ

The article considers the genre of Cyranoʼs novel «Another world», widely discussed in both domestic and foreign literary studies. It explores the elements of science fiction in contrast to those of the miraculous, as they appear in the 17th-century literature, and identifies the features of utopianism and the peculiarities of scientific forecasting in the work. Both parts of «Another world» are examined in their similarities and differences from one another, as well as combination of universalism and topical issues of the novel with narrative irony and burlesque.

Science Fiction and Religion: A parallel between The Time Machine and Perelandra

C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy is the only daring excursion the author does in the world of science fiction genre. Thus, this article has as main goal to raise discussion on the elements of science fiction and religion present on Perelandra (1943), core novel of C. S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy and H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine (1895). To this end, it is drawn a parallel between these novels in order to demonstrate the deep discussion on religious and scientific issues explored by Lewis and Wells, as well as shown their humanistic and religious views of the process of scientific development. As theoretical support, we build on the literary scholarship of Frye, (2004), Suvin (1979), McGrath (2020), among others. Through the discussion provided in this study it is possible to notice that Perelandra displays verisimilitude to The Time Machine in the narrative structure and plot. Both novels present eschatological characteristic, since the writers deal with the future of humanity, evolution process and its philosophical implications. For all those features, one can infer that both Perelandra and The Time Machine bring a deep reflection embedded in religious and humanistic knowledge and discussions

TRANSFORMATION OF A FAIRY TALE IN «HYBRID» SCIENCE FICTION (BASED ON AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN PROSE OF THE XXth CENTURY)

The article introduces and substantiates the concept of «hybrid» science fiction, which combines the elements of science fiction and horror fiction. In «hybrid» fiction, science fiction surroundings cannot rationalize the text, but, on the contrary, they are replaced by motives of supernatural horror. «Hybrid» science fiction, in contrast to «hard» science fiction , develops the idea of ​​ unknowability of the Universe. It is worth mentioning here, that «hard» science fiction has been described well enough, but there is a shortage of research work in relation to its «hybrid» version, so this research can be considered as pioneering. We use E. M. Neyolov’s typology that describes the connection between a fairy tale and «hard» science fiction. Basing on this typology, we analyse «hybrid» fiction, in which science fiction scenery was replaced by the anti-rational principle. The research methodology involves a combination of structural, typological and comparative methods. As a material for the study, we use the works of such Russian and American authors as D. Glukhovsky, S. Lukyanenko, G. R. R. Martin, S. King, C. McCarthy, H. P. Lovecraft and others. The purpose of the article is to identify and describe the transformation of fairytale discourse in the works of these authors that leads to the genre transition from science fiction to horror fiction. The texts are being analysed from three points of view: system of characters, the structure of space and the direction of time. It is concluded that in «hybrid» science fiction the typological model of the fairy tale was distorted, reconsidered or destroyed, and it is the aberration of the fairytale motif that opens the gate for the genre transformation from «hard» science fiction to horror fiction. For example, the struggle of the superhero with the supervillain is traditional both for fairy tales and for science fiction, but it is replaced by psychologization of the hero and the extreme complication of the metaphysics of the Good and the Evil in «hybrid» science fiction . Besides that, the well-organized space of fairytale and science fiction as well as a close-cut separation of «ours» and «aliens», and also the mythologem of «threshold» are mixed in «hybrid» fiction and lose their symbolical unambiguity. Finally, science fiction and fairytale time in «hybrid» fiction ceases to exist and gives way to the tragic timelessness of chaos and nightmare. Thus, «hybrid» fiction destroys both the canons of «hard» science fiction and the constructs of the fairy tale genre.