Dystopian Literature

An Account of Fahrenheit 451

by JC Brown

Written for the History of Books, Printing, and Publishing (LIS 7790) -- Wayne State University, School of Library and Information Science. Dedicated to the three Js: Jaema, Janet, and Jarod.

This paper explores the development, publication history, and reception of the 1953 dystopian novella Fahrenheit 451... more This paper explores the development, publication history, and reception of the 1953 dystopian novella Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. A brief biographical sketch of Bradbury provides readers with necessary background information that shows an early interest in the topics of book burning and censorship. Development of the novella is traced by way of a collection of short stories that later evolved into Fahrenheit 451 – most of which had not been published until recently. A summary of the publication history is laid out with the most recent being the work's release in e-book format much to Bradbury's consternation. The paper examines the historical happenings which were occurring at the time of the novella's publication which affected the overall interpretation of the work with consideration given to Bradbury's sentiments. An examination of the book's censorship history is explored.

Space Jesuits and Galactic theocracy: Identifying four forms of dystopic Catholicism in Science Fiction

by Jim Clarke

A seminar presented at Saor Ollscoil na hEireann, 16th May 2012.

Dystopic Utopia: Similarities in Utopia and Nineteen Eighty-four

by Lauren Baker

Discussing similarities in Utopian and Dystopian literature in Utopia by Thomas More and Nineteen Eight-four by George... more Discussing similarities in Utopian and Dystopian literature in Utopia by Thomas More and Nineteen Eight-four by George Orwell.

Feminist Duality of Molly Millions in Gibson's Neuromancer

by Lauren Baker

Discussing duality in a feminist reading of Molly Millions from William Gibson's Neuromancer. Discussing duality in a feminist reading of Molly Millions from William Gibson's Neuromancer.

“Huxley/Orwell/Bradbury Reloaded; or, The Campy Art of Bricolage”

by Grzegorz Maziarczyk

published in: Imperfect Worlds and Dystopian Narratives in Contemporary Cinema. Ed. Artur Blaim and Ludmiła Gruszewska-Blaim. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2011. 45-61.

Neuromancer Observation

by Johanna Strong

Lilith's Brood as a Post-Colonial Window

by Johanna Strong

Lilith’s Brood as the Post-Colonial Window
Using the lens of post-colonial theory, Octavia Butler’s Brood can be... more Lilith’s Brood as the Post-Colonial Window
Using the lens of post-colonial theory, Octavia Butler’s Brood can be seen an example of how an invader removes the selfhood of the invaded as a means of control.  Combining race, culture, and gender, Lilith’s Brood examines and attests to dehumanization as a means of restriction of the invaded and supremacy for the invader.  Modern studies that focus on race, ethnicity, and region are many times studied at the same time as part of postcolonial studies, encouraging the rethinking of the assumptions of “identity, history, politics, and literature” (Parker 263).  This paper explores the way Butler uses the alien invader to control the populace much as the European controlled the invaded peoples encountered by explorers.  Like the European colonizers of the past, the aliens do not feel that the human subalterns can possibly understand the enormity of their situation, which is the Earth is dead and the aliens have plans for the creation of a new Earth and a new people to occupy it.  In terms of theory, Edward Said argues that the way the West speaks of the East is through a specific discourse (Parker 248).  He says that the East is viewed, erroneously, as “sensual, lazy, exotic, irrational, cruel, promiscuous, seductive, inscrutable… primitive, ruled by emotion… and a world where all people are alike and where their actions are determined by the national or racial category they belong to” (248).  This is much the same language the Oakali use to describe the humans. ).  Said says the West (or the invader) has labeled itself as “rational … democratic … modern, progressive, technological, and the center of the world…” (248). This is how the Oakali portray themselves to the Humans.  These two cultures, the invader and invaded, are in direct opposition to each other.  When they clash, it nearly destroys one culture entirely.  It is only saved through the intervention of one of the invaders, and even then, it is only a token, an act grudgingly done.  The hegemony of the invader is the one that wins in the end, and the invaded, the surviving Humans, are left to conform or die.

Getting World Going in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

by Berthold Schoene

forthcoming in ‘Sense and the Senses in the Philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy’ special journal issue of Senses and Society (with a foreword by J.-L. Nancy), ed. by M. Syrontinski (London: Berg, 2012, forthcoming).

The Rise and Fall of the Robot Papacy: Mapping Roman Catholic dystopias in late 20th Century Science Fiction

by Jim Clarke

Delivered at 'Worlds Apart' science fiction conference, University of Hertfordshire, 2nd April, 2012.

Since Jules Verne, science fiction has attracted Utopian writers of Roman Catholic backgrounds. But the theology and... more Since Jules Verne, science fiction has attracted Utopian writers of Roman Catholic backgrounds. But the theology and practice of Catholicism has not generally played a role in most sci-fi futures, which commonly depict pluralist or post-religious societies.
Orthodox Catholic theology does form the basis of a phylum of Christian science fiction among the religion's and genre's adherents. However, depictions of Roman Catholicism in more mainstream science fiction have tended to present a dystopic and monolithic  church opposed to technological and evolutionary progress.
In this paper, I intend to map the development of dystopic Catholicism in late 20th century science fiction. From the American dystopias of the Fifties, wherein Catholicism is a Malthusian nightmare obstructing enlightenment, through the British late Modernist alt-histories of the Sixties, which depict the horror of a world without the Reformation, I hope to chart a lineage of sci-fi Catholicism as opponent and obstacle to scientific, philosophical and even theological Utopianism.
However, I will explore how later science fiction problematised this simple dichotomy, by positing a role for post-Vatican II Catholicism as preserver of human knowledge and positivist voice of humanity in post-apocalyptic or technologically dominated futures.
From Robert Silverberg's appointment of a Robot Pope to Clifford Simak's frustrated techno-Papacy, science fiction has struggled to locate Catholicism definitively along its Utopian-Dystopian axis. Nowhere is this conflict more evident than in Walter Miller's Liebowitz duology, which presents an ironically distorted Catholicism as both preserver and opponent of knowledge and progress in a world trapped in a cycle of apocalypse.
Latterly, as the Roman Catholic church has reverted to conservatism, sci-fi depictions of Catholicism have developed a new dystopic paradigm. I will demonstrate that contemporary sci-fi no longer opposes Catholicism with techno-progress, but posits that both stand allied against the spirit of progressive liberal humanism.

The Road Hope in Ashes

by Jonathan Sowers

“Spells Out The Word of Itself, and Then Dispelling Itself”: The Chaotics of Memory and The Ghost of the Novel in Jeff Noon’s Falling out of Cars

by Andrew Wenaus

Forthcoming: Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts

This article is a study of British author Jeff Noon’s most recent novel Falling out of Cars (2002) as a literary... more This article is a study of British author Jeff Noon’s most recent novel Falling out of Cars (2002) as a literary experiment engaged in raising the ghost of the modern novel, long hailed as dead.  Here, Noon samples canonic literature then transforms, manipulates, and reconfigures it in much the same way a message is transformed when being passed through a communication circuit. The result is a kind of poetic prose Noon terms “metamorphiction”: an elegant experimental mode of fantasy in which signs mutate within certain systemic parameters.  In metamorphiction, the textual past literally haunts the textual present.  This formal experiment is mirrored in the content: the novel concerns a middle aged woman mourning the death of her daughter.  Ultimately, Falling out of Cars is both a virtuosic piece of fantastic fiction and a serious meditation on the contemporary state of the novel.     

A cidade distópica como construção utópica: Uma discussão sobre a cidade como objeto da comunicação

by Carolina Figueiredo

As cidades não são comumente tomadas como objetos da comunicação. Contudo, elas viabilizam a expressão de poderes e... more As cidades não são comumente tomadas como objetos da comunicação. Contudo, elas viabilizam a expressão de poderes e indivíduos e servem como interlocutora silenciosa. Tais características são evidenciadas quando tratamos das narrativas distópicas, que fazem questão de justapor cidades e comunicação. Assim, utilizam-se os livros Admirável Mundo Novo, 1984 e Fahrenheit 452 para analisar, ainda que incipientemente, as relações entre cidades e comunicação. Menciona-se ainda o conceito de heterotopias como forma de abordar as cidades contemporâneas para além do conceito de utopias e distopias.

Utopias e distopias na comunicação: uma breve discussão sobre os modelos idealizados da comunicação

by Carolina Figueiredo

Neste artigo, propõe-se analisar dois paradigmas de comunicação, a totalitária e a democrática como tipos ideais.... more Neste artigo, propõe-se analisar dois paradigmas de comunicação, a totalitária e a democrática como tipos ideais. Tomamos a noção weberiana de tipo ideal para identificar tais paradigmas, avaliando-os dentro de uma perspectiva distópica ou utópica, de acordo com as suas representações mais recorrentes.

Russian and American Satirists and the Exposure of Cold War Fictionalities

by Derek C. Maus

In _Global Cold War Literatures: Western, Eastern, and Postcolonial Perspectives_, edited by Andrew Hammond. Forthcoming from Routledge, 2012.

Series and Systems: Russian and American Dystopian Satires of the Cold War

by Derek C. Maus

Critical Survey, 17.1 (Spring 2005), 72-94.

Brave New World - Future has arrived

by Michael Hageböck

A Plague of Discontent: Russian Dystopia and the 1905 Revolution

by Thomas Lecaque

Term Paper for Cole Woodcox, Science Fiction by Gaslight, Spring 2009

“Heterotopías digitales: simulacro y realidades en La sombra Cazadora (Suso de Toro) y Sueños Digitales (Edmundo Paz Soldán).”

by Antonio Francisco PEDROS-GASCON

Tropelías. Revista de Teoría de la literatura y literatura comparada 12-14 (2001-03): 393-405

The Regressive Impulse in Zamyatin's dystopic novel "We"

by Sarah Ossipow Cheang

This paper stresses the puzzling similarities between Zamyatin’s psychological account of his hero’s life, in... more This paper stresses the puzzling similarities between Zamyatin’s psychological account of his hero’s life, in "We", and Freud’s description of the psyche. 

"Kadınlar Robotlara Karşı"

by Özlem Karadağ

Gölge e-dergi, June 2011, pp. 75-84

Ira Levin's Stepford Wives vs. the Directors' Choices: A Closer Look at Bryan Forbes's and Frank Oz's Adaptations. Ira Levin's Stepford Wives vs. the Directors' Choices: A Closer Look at Bryan Forbes's and Frank Oz's Adaptations.