| Popis: |
My dissertation draws on science fiction as a sometimes overlooked form of literature that demonstrates how its writers, editors, and fans not only address contemporary cultural and societal issues but also imagine the future - who does and does not belong there. Creators and consumers of science fiction, I argue, are compliant with absence; in other words, their vision of an ideal future all too often includes only able-bodied/minded, straight, white, and privileged occupants. Since science fiction exists long before the disability field coalesces, I examine texts for ideas and deployments of disability within the narrative, rather than pointing to a disabled character and declaring, "There is the disability in the book." Beginning with H. G. Wells's quintessential The Time Machine (1895) and his health status at the time, I argue that the genre develops alongside Wells's lived experiences with disability and, as such, it is possible to study Wells's vast oeuvre in the context of not only these lived experiences, but also "ideas about disability," found in time travel, Martians, dys-/utopia, and other science fiction tropes that pass down from Wells. Featuring texts by Octavia E. Butler, Judith Merril, Clare Winger Harris, William Gibson, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, and David H. Keller, this dissertation examines representations of disability that highlight controversial topics such as which human lives are considered worthy of life or killable/murderable in light of both the chosen texts and the cases that appear in contemporary legislation. While the bulk of this work lies with the early eras of science fiction, I also include the more recent subgenre of cyberpunk as it relates to the emerging HIV and AIDS crisis and the developing connection between HIV and AIDS and the COVID pandemic. Lastly, I speculate on the visionary fiction of Octavia E. Butler that presages the current societal and political situation we (as readers, writers, and scholars) find ourselves in today. Although this work is largely focused on ideas of disability found throughout science fiction, it also includes a crip analysis of other groups marginalized by race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation who might also be excluded from "our" collective future. Ultimately, this dissertation utilizes the intersection of science fiction and disability studies to show that it is possible to imagine (and work towards) an elsewhere and elsewhen where disability and all other marginalized populations will not only be present, but also integral and valued. |
