2nd Edition
The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction
The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction provides an overview of the study of science fiction across multiple academic fields. It offers a new conceptualisation of the field today, marking the significant changes that have taken place in sf studies over the past 15 years.
Building on the pioneering research in the first edition, the collection reorganizes historical coverage of the genre to emphasise new geographical areas of cultural production and the growing importance of media beyond print. It also updates and expands the range of frameworks that are relevant to the study of science fiction. The periodisation has been reframed to include new chapters focusing on science fiction produced outside the Anglophone context, including South Asian, Latin American, Chinese and African diasporic science fiction. The contributors use both well- established critical and theoretical approaches and embrace a range of new ones, including biopolitics, climate crisis, critical ethnic studies, disability studies, energy humanities, game studies, medical humanities, new materialisms and sonic studies.
This book is an invaluable resource for students and established scholars seeking to understand the vast range of engagements with science fiction in scholarship today.
Introduction
Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler and Sherryl Vint
Part I: Science fiction histories
1 North African, Middle Eastern, Arabic and diasporic science fiction
Sinéad Murphy
2 The Copernican revolution
Adam Roberts
3 Indigenous futurisms
Nicole Kuʻuleinapuananiolikoʻawapuhimelemeleolani Furtado
4 Art as science fiction
Andrew M. Butler
5 Nineteenth-century western science fiction
Arthur B. Evans
6 Latin American science fiction
Rubén R. Mendoza
7 Russian- language science fiction
Brittany R. Roberts
8 South Asian science fiction
Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay
9 Afrodiasporic speculative fiction
Nicola Hunte
10 Anglophone print fiction: Children’s and young adult
Emily Midkiff
11 Afrofuturism
Rone Shavers
12 Science fiction illustration
John Timberlake
13 Japanese science fiction
Baryon Tensor Posadas
14 Science fiction film, 1895– 1950
J.P. Telotte
15 Chinese science fiction
Wu Yan (translated by Joel Martinsen)
16 Anglophone print fiction: The pulps to the New Wave
Patrick B. Sharp
17 Anglophone science fiction fandoms, 1920s– 2020s
Robin Anne Reid
18 Science fiction theatre
Christos Callow, Jr.
19 Radio and podcasts
Karen Hellekson
20 Comics from the 1930s to the 1960s
Michael Goodrum
21 Science fiction film and television: The 1950s to the 1970s
Lincoln Geraghty
22 Video, installation art and short science fiction film
Dan Byrne- Smith
23 Anglophone print fiction: The New Wave to the new millennium
Rebecca McWilliams Ojala Ballard
24 Comics since the late 1960s
Martin Lund
25 Transmedia and franchise science fiction
Dan Hassler- Forest
26 Science fiction film and television: The 1980s and 1990s
Sharon Sharp
27 South Korean science fiction
Sunyoung Park
28 Twenty- first century film
Barry Keith Grant
29 Twenty- first century television
Sherryl Vint
30 Anglophone print fiction: The new millennium
John Rieder
31 Diasporic Latinx futurisms
Taryne Jade Taylor
Part II: Science fiction praxis
32 Advertising, prototyping and Silicon Valley culture
Jordan S. Carroll
33 Alternate history
Glyn Morgan
34 Animal studies
Anna Maria Grzybowska
35 Biopolitics
Sherryl Vint
36 Climate crisis and environmental humanities
Melody Jue
37 Critical ethnic studies
Christopher T. Fan
38 Digital cultures
Elizabeth Callaway
39 Disability studies
Josefine Wälivaara
40 DIY science fiction
Jonathan Alexander
41 Economics and financialisation
Hugh C. O’Connell
42 Empire
Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee
43 Energy humanities
Rhys Williams
44 Feminisms
Rebecca J. Holden
45 Game studies
Paweł Frelik
46 Geography, urban design and architecture
Amy Brookes
47 Marxism
Gerry Canavan
48 Medical humanities
Anna McFarlane and Gavin Miller
49 New materialism
Alison Sperling
50 Post/ trans/ human
Veronica Hollinger
51 Queer and trans theory
Beyond Gender Research Collective
52 Science fiction tourism
Brooks Landon
53 Social activism and science fiction
Shelley Streeby
54 Sonic studies
Erik Steinskog
55 Utopian studies
Katie Stone
Biography
Mark Bould (he/ him) is Professor of Film and Literature at the University of the West of England. He is the recipient of the Science Fiction Research Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts’ Distinguished Scholarship Award. His books include This Is Not A Science Fiction Textbook (with Steven Shaviro; 2024), The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture (2021), M. John Harrison: Critical Essays (with Rhys Williams 2019), Solaris (2014), SF Now (with Rhys Williams 2014), Africa SF (2013), Science Fiction: The Routledge Film Guidebook (2012) and The Routledge Concise History of Science Fiction (with Sherryl Vint; 2011).
Andrew M. Butler (he/ him) is the author of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2019) and Solar Flares: Science Fiction in the 1970s (2012). He is Managing Editor of Extrapolation and chair of judges for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.
Sherryl Vint (she/ her) is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and Chair of English at the University of California, Riverside. She is the recipient of the Science Fiction Research Association’s Innovative Scholarship and its Lifetime Achievement Awards. Her books include Programming the Future: Politics, Resistance, and Utopia in Contemporary Speculative TV (with Jonathan Alexander; 2022), Biopolitical Futures in Twenty- First- Century Speculative Fiction (2021), Science Fiction: The Essential Knowledge (2021), After the Human: Culture, Theory and Criticism in the 21st Century (2020), The Futures Industry (2015), Science Fiction and Cultural Theory: A Reader (2015) and Science Fiction: A Guide for the Perplexed (2014).
