Race in American Science Fiction

Isiah Lavender III (Author)

9780253222596

Paperback / softback, published 8 February 2011

286 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.431 kg

"Critically ambitious. . . . Isiah Lavender spurs a direct conversation about race and racism in science fiction."—De Witt Douglas Kilgore, author of Astrofuturism

Noting that science fiction is characterized by an investment in the proliferation of racial difference, Isiah Lavender III argues that racial alterity is fundamental to the genre's narrative strategy. Race in American Science Fiction offers a systematic classification of ways that race appears and how it is silenced in science fiction, while developing a critical vocabulary designed to focus attention on often-overlooked racial implications. These focused readings of science fiction contextualize race within the genre's better-known master narratives and agendas. Authors discussed include Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, and Ursula K. Le Guin, among many others.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Mapping the Blackground
1. Racing Science Fiction
2. Meta-slavery
3. Jim Crow Extrapolations
4. Ailments of Race
5. Ethnoscapes
6. Technologically Derived Ethnicities
Epilogue: Science Fictioning Race
Notes
Bibliography
Index