McGuirk, Carol

The aim of this thesis is to explore the elements of power-knowledge in two SF novels written amid the Space Race during the Cold War era. While the dominant interest of both Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris and Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama generally revolves around the implications of human interactions with an alien presence, my focus is primarily on the power structures that propel those interactions: questioning the intentions of scientific pursuits and analyzing the effects of Foucauldian power relations on the human individual. I do this by applying Foucault’s theories of the duality of the subject and his work on biopolitics. What is gleaned is not only a study of the interests of power, but an emphasis on the intersectional restrictions of power and cognition.

The prevalence and impact of trauma has been mischaracterized and misinterpreted throughout time, and this has undoubtedly affected the health and treatment of countless people throughout history. Considering this, some authors impacted by firsthand or cultural traumas before and/or during World War II and the Cold War era, went on to write works of science fiction that handled heavy and taboo characterizations of traumatic stress. Looking back at these short stories and novels with a modern clinical perspective of the impacts of trauma, one can see how these characterizations turned out to be strikingly accurate, or, at the very least, closer to truth than perspectives and hypotheses of their era.
Two short stories, “Thunder and Roses” by Theodore Sturgeon and “Scanners Live in Vain” by Cordwainer Smith, and two novels, The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, will be examined.

Late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century poets concentrated some of their creative
energies into poetry in which animals are used to comment on human experience. Such
poets as Anna Barbauld, Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge employ images of animals for social and political commentary as well as
individual and private psychological exploration. All four poets comment on why and
how animals are significant in a human context, exploring the larger political and social
concerns symbolized by animal misfortune, and simultaneously drawing (sometimes
unintentionally) attention to animal welfare.

I discuss Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen and Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira manga
(Japanese comics) series in light of theoretical approaches to comics and graphic novels
that were developed by Will Eisner and Scott McCloud. Chapter one summarizes the
fusing of traditional Japanese scroll art and Western comics that would create manga and
describe the cultural conditions after World War II that drove this fusion. The chapter
also describes the principle of closure that this form relies so heavily on. Chapter two
discusses how manga have directly dealt with the repercussions of World War II; it is
focused primarily on Barefoot Gen. Chapter three examines how censorship and taboos
have hindered discussions ofthe war in Japan, how this censorship contributed to the
terrorist attacks of Aum Shinrikyo, and how manga such as Akira have used subtle codes
and references to introduce to Japan further discuss the true legacy of World War II.

Science fiction, like any other genre, is sub-divided into categories. Yet scholars
in the field have long debated the existence of multiple, regional sf genres. The most
critiqued of these classifications is between sf produced in Britain, and America. Though
Britain remains the birthplace of sf, American author have undoubtedly left a mark on the
genre. Scholars mark this difference in the writing styles and themes of authors in these
regions. To examine this difference, I analyze two authors that have worked on a
common theme: religion and in particular, the concept of hell. Evaluating the arguments
put forth by critics such as Peter Kuczka, Cy Chavin, Franz Rottensteiner, and others; I
examine works by Scottish author Iain m. Banks, and American author Cordwainer Smith
to determine the validity of this classification.

Much has been written about the effectiveness of speculative fiction, especially
utopian works. In this thesis I will examine the source of fear in Margaret Artwood’s
works The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake using Sigmund Freud’s “The Uncanny”
to illustrate the terror of doubles as they appear in the novels. The terror in The
Handmaid’s Tale comes from the descriptions of distorted physical environments, while
the horror in Oryx and Crake emanates from the familiar yet twisted animals and
characters found inside the corporate compounds. Through the recognition of these
doubles as uncanny, Atwood’s work moves readers to cognition and social action.

Anthony Trollope's novels provide insight into the courtship rituals of the Victorian Era. Three novels in particular, Miss Mackenzie, The American Senator, and The Way We Live Now, are analyzed in this thesis. Primary emphasis is placed on the social and moral repercussions that result when women violate the subtle codes of courtship. Honesty versus lying, the difficulties of the older woman, the creation of individual identity within a restrictive society, the definition of a "lady," and the laws pertaining to marriage rights are my major focal points. Trollope rewards and punishes his female characters based on his version of Victorian moral dogma.

Romantic friendships, or raves as they were commonly called, were a common element of the culture of girl's schools in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, the impact of sexologists' theories served to pathologize and stigmatize these relationships. Muriel Spark was a product of the girl's school education in the post-Freudian era. While many scholars have studied The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for its spiritual or moral content, few have discussed the sexuality and lesbian content in the novel. This thesis discusses the sexual dynamics of the two main characters, Jean Brodie and Sandy Stranger, while taking into account the social, psychological, and biographical influences on Spark's novel. Romantic friendship is a compelling force in the narrative which drives each character in their vacillation between loyalty and betrayal.

Throughout The Gate to Women's Country, Sheri S. Tepper covers the patriarchal structures of her imagined society with a veneer of feminism. The novel contains many hallmarks of a feminist utopia, such as a concern for the environment and a distrust of men and technology; yet all are undercut by the traditional structures that she retains of class, military machismo, sexuality, and motherhood. An attempt to read The Gate to Women's Country as "a fortifying tonic" (Simmons 22) leads one instead into the "politics of despair" ("Reconsiderations" 44), as one realizes that Tepper is exaggerating, not resolving, the problematic relations that continue to exist between genders. Too perceptive to be overly optimistic about "surmounting humanity's most dangerous flaws" (Miller 15), Tepper's dystopian novel ultimately acknowledges that the genetic solutions of "Women's Country" are nearly futile. She leaves the struggling utopian and dystopian forces of the novel unresolved and men and women in perpetual conflict.

Tristram Shandy is a famously formless text in which the "life and opinions" of the title character appear to spill forth from the narrator without a governing theme or structure. Chronology and plot are interrupted and re-ordered. Characters are defined as mere fragments of personality, "strokes of a pen"; objects are represented as broken, snarled, and discombobulated. The subtexts and digressive tales included within the novel are incomplete as well as disruptive of the larger whole. Sterne withholds the "complete" picture a conventional novel provides, and fragmentation becomes the prevailing motif of his book: the author's motley meaning lies hidden in an abundance of disrupted and broken forms. I propose an examination of the multitude of discontinuous forms in Tristram Shandy, seen in narrative structures, characters, objects, and themes. My discussion concludes with discussion of time and mortality--Sterne's final implicit acknowledgment of the links between the novel's theme and form, and the narrator's vain flight from Death.