Marxism and science fiction

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critical theory, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr

I am still puzzling my way through my response to Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr’s The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction. It is, I think, a necessary if somewhat belated corrective to the Marxist/Suvinian orthodoxy that is the common academic response to science fiction, in that he eases back on cognitive estrangement and is actually quite radical in his re-evaluation of the novum. But I’m still not sure that he goes far enough.

Language and Power

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critical theory, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr, langauge and sf

It is becoming clear that reading The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction by Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr is going to take a long time. Not because it is a difficult book; he uses rather more academic jargon than I think he realises, but it is not off-putting or impenetrable. No, the problem is that after just about every paragraph I have to stop and think, and then work my way through the various extraneous ideas that he has set going in my mind.

Modern Criticism and Theory: Shklovsky

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critical theory, Victor Shklovsky

So now it’s time to move on to:

2: Victor Shklovsky, Art as technique

Modern Criticism and Theory: Saussure

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critical theory, Ferdinand de Saussure, Ludwig Wittgenstein

I am off work sick, my head feels as if it is stuffed with cotton wool, I have barely moved from bed all day and am too tired to stay awake and too awake to go to sleep, and to cap it all, yesterday when I started writing this we had a (minor) earthquake. Obviously, I am in the perfect frame of mind to tackle …

1: Ferdinand de Saussure, The Object of Study/Nature of the Linguistic Sign

Modern Criticism and Theory

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critical theory, David Lodge

This anthology of essays and extracts from books edited by David Lodge dates from 1988 so it is hardly the latest word on the subject. Nevertheless, its contents include many of the names I keep coming across in my more general reading, and since I feel like starting to engage with the theorists and not just the theories, it seemed a good place to start. And as I worked my way through the first couple of pieces, I realised it would help me sort out my response to what I’m reading if I wrote about it. So over the next few weeks, however long it takes me to work my way through the 28 pieces, I thought I would have a go at blogging the book. At this stage I have no idea if it will work, or if I will come up with anything remotely resembling a coherent response to the contents, but it’s worth having a go.

Texts and Contexts

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Adam Roberts, critical theory, Damien Broderick, Darko Suvin, Francis Godwin, Henry Neville, J.G. Ballard, John Clute, Margaret Cavendish

Back at the beginning of the month I read a book called Speaking with the Dead for review in The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, even though the book has practically nothing to do with science fiction or fantasy. It is devoted to a rather esoteric point of New Historicism (the whole book is built around one sentence in a work by Stephen Greenblatt) and I don’t want to say much more about it here since the review will be appearing in JFA. But I found myself considering one intriguing question in relation to the study of sf prompted by this book: why does so little sf criticism employ the tools of New Historicism?