Science Fiction and Postcolonialism: The Power of Cross-Genre Fiction

Izak Lewandowski, Purdue University

Abstract

Science fiction as a genre has long been utilized to illustrate and create conversations surrounding societal or cultural issues, but has been forced to reside on the fringes of academic writing for many decades. A few major writers within the genre (Octavia Butler and Ursula K. LeGuin, to name two of the most prominent and successful) have sought to upend the notion of science fiction as “mere genre fiction” and enfold it more fully into literary fiction, demonstrate science fiction’s worth in exploring societal issues and theoretical concepts. This thesis will seek, via a blend of academic and creative writing, to utilize that same potential of science fiction writing to understand and demonstrate the problems of a post-colonial society. This thesis project sets out to put postcolonial theory and two genres of writing, specifically science fiction and academic writing, into conversation in order to demonstrate an important point about the potential for science fiction to illustrate, demonstrate, and build upon the ideas of critical theory in a meaningful way. The connection between literature and critical theory has been expanded upon, researched, and written about by countless earlier writers: this project does not seek to revolutionize that relationship, but instead demonstrate the potential strength of science fiction writing to paint critical theory in a new context. The specific demonstration referenced prior will be a work of fiction, a science fiction novella in four parts. However, though this fiction is the bulk by length of the project, it is not the sole point of the project itself; instead, it serves as the base for the rest of the writing included in this project, which is more theoretical in nature and deeply rooted in both literary criticism and critical theory in general, specifically focusing on the genre of post-colonial criticism. To begin speaking about the theoretical component of this project, first a bit of background information must be presented. Perhaps the best place to start will be with the form that this theoretical component will be taking, and for that we must begin with an article written by Emerson Grant Sutcliffe in 1945 titled “Re-Creative Criticism.” This article, admittedly, is far from recent, and much more research and writing has been done on the subject of the links between creativity and criticism Within this article, Sutcliffe argued that the ultimate goal of all criticism is “...first, to know what the work of art being criticized is and, second, to re-present that knowledge” (Sutcliffe 633). He asserts that criticism is as much a creative act as it is a scholarly one, an act which heavily relies upon the critic’s own sensibilities, experience, and ability to communicate their own experience to an audience in the same way a writer of a creative work does: the difference is that the critic must also understand the writer’s sensibilities, experience, and have a grasp upon what the writer attempts to communicate through their work. Criticism has changed and evolved in many ways since the time of Sutcliffe’s writing, but the interplay between criticism and creativity remains relevant in the works of others in even modern eras of criticism (Walsh, Gallagher, as well as myriad responses to both). This project, however, takes Sutcliffe’s concept of “re-creative criticism” and reverses its notion: a concept that I have affectionately phrased after Sutcliffe’s, “re-critical creation.”

Degree

M.A.

Advisors

White, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Folklore|Literature

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