The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction is the first large-scale reference work of its kind, critically assessing the relations of gender and genre in science fiction (SF) especially-but not exclusively-as explored in speculative art by women and LGBTQ+ artists across the world.

This global volume builds upon the traditions of interdisciplinary inquiry by connecting established topics in gender studies and science fiction studies with emergent ideas from researchers in different media. Taken together, they challenge conventional generic boundaries; provide new ways of approaching familiar texts; recover lost artists and introduce new ones; connect the revival of old, hate-based politics with the increasing visibility of imagined futures for all; and show how SF stories about new kinds of gender relations inspire new models of artistic, technoscientific, and political practice. Their chapters are grouped into five conversations-about the history of gender and genre, theoretical frameworks, subjectivities, medias and transmedialities, and transtemporalities-that are central to discussions of gender and SF in the current moment. A range of both emerging and established names in media, literature, and cultural studies engage with a huge diversity of topics including eco-criticism, animal studies, cyborg and posthumanist theory, masculinity, critical race studies, Indigenous futurisms, Black girlhood, and gaming.

This is an essential resource for students and scholars studying gender, sexuality, and/or science fiction.

About the Author

Lisa Yaszek is Regents' Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech, US, and past president of the Science Fiction Research Association; her recent books include Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century (2020) and The Future Is Female! series (2018-present).

Sonja Fritzsche is Professor of German Studies and Associate Dean at Michigan State University, US, and focuses on Eastern European science fiction and the amplification of global science fiction studies.

Keren Omry is Senior Lecturer of contemporary US fiction at the University of Haifa, Israel, where she researches and teaches on Alternate Histories, Science Fiction, and African-American literature.

Wendy Gay Pearson is Chair of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies at the University of Western Ontario in Canada whose research focuses on queer and trans science fiction; with Veronica Holinger and Joan Gordon, she is co-editor of Queer Universes: Sexualities in Science Fiction (2008).

Reviews

"Science fiction has been questioning gender norms since before there was science fiction (think Margaret Cavendish, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Perkins Gilman). This lively and comprehensive new volume, edited by leading scholars in the field, surveys science fiction's powerful techniques for exploring difference and exposing injustice. The essays demonstrate how far both the genre itself and scholarly responses to it have come since the early days of feminist critique. Contributors look at thought-experiments about queer or nonbinary societies and gender systems derived from non-European cultures as well as at the explosion of science fictional thinking in animation, comics, and other media. As new discoveries about the varieties of human experience and new technologies turn absolutes into mere possibilities, books like this serve as tour guides to a new reality."

--Brian Attebery, author of Decoding Gender in Science Fiction and Fantasy: How It Works

"The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science is a comprehensive, ambitious, and thought-provoking volume with invaluable research and resources for students and scholars. Bringing together voices of science fiction writers, established scholars, and new voices, this book establishes important links between gender studies and science fiction studies. As this anthology shows, science fiction offers a unique site to explore gender issues including identity, bodies, social issues, race, animal studies, among many other topics. Readers of the Routledge Companion to Gender and Science will receive a graduate-level course in the relevance of science fiction for gender, and gender for science fiction. The book's sophisticated analysis is presented in accessible and engaging prose."

--Robin Roberts, author of A New Species: Gender and Science in Science Fiction and Anne McCaffrey: A Life with Dragons

"Fritzsche, Omry, Pearson, and Yaszek bring together an array of established and emerging critical voices in science fiction and gender studies to create this comprehensive companion. A wide array of scholarship ranging from theory to history to media studies addresses canonical authors like Mary Shelley and Margaret Atwood alongside discussions of Black, Indian, Mexican, Chinese and Japanese authors and creators. The editors' inclusion of BIPOC and global voices and topics is a deliberate choice to move beyond a white, Western view of feminism and gender studies in science fiction scholarship. Essential reading for anyone interested in representations of gender and identity in science fiction literature, theory, and media."

--Joy Sanchez-Taylor, author of Diverse Futures: Science Fiction and Authors of Color

"This unique collection emerges from what Donna Haraway has referred to as "situated knowledge," that is, knowledge firmly embedded and contextualized in the particularities of histories, cultures, and social formations. Its chapters demonstrate the inextricably intersectional nature of gender and sexuality as these messy and complex categories are embodied in all their differences in speculative fictions from around the world and through equally wide-ranging scholarly considerations. None of the sections here are identified by geography: no privileged works or sites or voices dominate this wide-ranging conversation. Queerness and diversity are the norms, and with skill and panache the editors have put together a collection that comes very near to the realization of their utopian ambitions."

--Veronica Hollinger, Science Fiction Studies

Book Information
ISBN 9780367537012
Author Lisa Yaszek
Format Hardback
Page Count 440
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 940g