{"product_id":"race-law-and-speculative-fiction-future-pasts-hardback-9781512829334","title":"Race, Law, and Speculative Fiction; Future Pasts (Hardback) 9781512829334","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eRace, Law, and Speculative Fiction\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eFuture Pasts\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eIsiah Lavender III (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781512829334\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 19 May 2026\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e288 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.558 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Isaiah Lavender III combines rock-solid scholarship, a sure grasp of the much maligned and misrepresented field of critical race theory, and playful, inviting prose in this innovative, important work of literary criticism.\" - John Rieder, University of Hawai'i\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eRace, Law, and Speculative Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e argues that the racial injustices shaping contemporary US life were already written into our imagined futures. Long before mass incarceration, police violence, surveillance, and the myth of colorblind law dominated public debate, science fiction was rehearsing the legal logics of racial control. Introducing the concept of the \u003cem\u003enoirum\u003c\/em\u003e, Isiah Lavender III shows how speculative narratives make visible the hidden movement of institutions\u0026amp;mdash;and reveals Black science fiction writers as some of the most incisive critical race theorists of our time. This book demonstrates that science fiction is not escapism but a critical site for understanding democracy, power, and futurity. By reframing science fiction as a mode of legal and racial theory, this book reshapes how scholars understand the relationship between narrative, power, and the future.\" - Lisa Yaszek, Georgia Tech\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Isaiah Lavender III takes us on a breath-taking journey through science fiction's imagined legislative acts, executive orders, and social rules, illuminating BIPOC SF writers' deep investigations of our racialized legal order.\" - Mark C. Jerng, University of California, Davis\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn analysis of US science fiction, through the lens of critical race theory, that illuminates how the genre offers new directions for serious appraisals of race and racism between yesterday, today, and tomorrow\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eRace, Law, and Speculative Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e, Isiah Lavender III takes seriously the theoretical, stylistic, and rhetorical possibilities inherent in the genre of science fiction toward challenging perceptions of race, ethnicity, whiteness, and Blackness in US culture. To do so, he examines works by a wide variety of science fiction writers exploring racial themes—Samuel R. Delany, Octavia Butler, Edgar Allan Poe, Mat Johnson (whose \u003ci\u003ePym\u003c\/i\u003e [2011] is a direct challenge to Poe's \u003ci\u003eThe Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket \u003c\/i\u003e[1838]), Derrick Bell, and others.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLocating racial contexts, social categorizations, and cultural patterns in US speculative fiction, Lavender employs the tenets of critical race theory to sight the unanticipated things the genre might have to say about race at the intersection between imaginary laws and how we, as readers, partake in this imagining. Recognizable science fiction tropes—such as alien contact, time travel, contagion, generation starships, the near future, alternate history, climate change, among others—constitute science fictional novum. The novum is the new thing, invention, or novelty introduced into the fictional world that deliberately functions as the catalyst for the change made in the fictional world, differing from the reader's world. Lavender coined the term \u003ci\u003enoirum\u003c\/i\u003e to represent the legislative innovations prompted within the fictional world to cope with, if not to control, the impact of the novum. Whether it is a make-believe amendment, imaginary federal court ruling, fictitious executive order, or something else entirely, the \u003ci\u003enoirum\u003c\/i\u003e identifies the ways in which these powerful science fiction motifs are organized around question of race.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eRace, Law, and Speculative Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e analyzes the ways in which science fiction has engaged with institutions and the law, offering narratives or concepts, or both, that uphold the racial status quo or fictional alternatives to existing legal structures. Bringing critical race theory and science fiction together, Lavender highlights stories that not only counter the dominant narrative of white supremacy but also envision a future in which people are united in full colored racial consciousness against dehumanization of any kind.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52681538109720,"sku":"9781512829334","price":36.29,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/race-law-and-speculative-fiction-future-pasts-hardback-9781512829334","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}