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Science Fiction, Canonization, Marginalization, and the Academy PDF

191 Pages·2002·10.2 MB·English
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S cience Fiction, Canonization, Marginalization, and the Academy Recent Titles in Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy Spiritual Exploration in the Works of Doris Lessing Phyllis Sternberg Perrakis, editor The Road to Castle Mount: The Science Fiction of Robert Silverberg Edgar L. Chapman Back in the Spaceship Again: Juvenile Science Fiction Series Since 1945 Karen Sands and Marietta Frank Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter, editors Space and Beyond: The Frontier Theme in Science Fiction Gary Westfahl, editor Transrealist Fiction: Writing in the Slipstream of Science Damien Broderick Science Fiction, Children's Literature, and Popular Culture: Coming of Age in Fantasyland Gary Westfahl Kurt Vonnegut: Images and Representations Marc Leeds and Peter J. Reed, editors Science and Destabilization in the Modern American Gothic: Lovecraft, Matheson, and King David A. Oakes J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth George Clark and Daniel Timmons, editors Rewriting the Women of Camelot: Arthurian Popular Fiction and Feminism Ann F Howey Monsters, Mushroom Clouds, and the Cold War M. Keith Booker S cience Fiction, Canonization, Marginalization, and the Academy Edited by Gary Westfahl and George Slusser Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Number 97 Donald Palumbo, Series Adviser Greenwood Press Westport, Connecticut • London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Science fiction, canonization, marginalization, and the academy / edited by Gary Westfahl and George Slusser. p. cm.—(Contributions to the study of science fiction and fantasy, ISSN 0193-6875; no. 97) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-313-32064-0 (alk. paper) 1. Science fiction, American—History and criticism—Theory, etc. 2. Science fiction, English—History and criticism—Theory, etc. 3. Science fiction—Study and teaching (Higher) 4. Canon (Literature) I. Westfahl, Gary. II. Slusser, George Edgar. III. Series. PS374.S35 S3325 2002 813'.0876209—dc21 2001042330 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2002 by Gary Westfahl and George Slusser All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001042330 ISBN: 0-313-32064-0 ISSN: 0193-6875 First published in 2002 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport,CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America @T The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21 Contents Acknowledgments vii 1. Introduction: Masters of the Literary Universe Gary Westfahl 1 Part I. Overviews: Science Fiction and the Academy 2. Literary Gatekeepers and the Fabril Tradition Tom Shippey 7 3. Seven Types of Chopped Liver: My Adventures in the Genre Wars Frank McConnell 25 4. The Things Women Don't Say Susan Kray 37 5. Why the Academy Is Afraid of Dragons: The Suppression of the Marvelous in Theories of the Fantastic Jonathan Langford 51 Part II. Mechanisms of Canonization 6. The Arthur C. Clarke Award and Its Reception in Britain Edward James 67 7. Popes or Tropes: Defining the Grails of Science Fiction Joseph D. Miller 79 VI Contents 8. Science Fiction Eye and the Rebellion against Recursion Stephen P. Brown 89 9. Authorities, Canons, and Scholarship: The Role of Academic Journals Arthur B. Evans 95 Part III. Case Studies in Marginalization 10. Multiculturalism and the Cultural Dynamics of Classic American Science Fiction George Slusser 103 11. Science Fiction in the Academies of History and Literature; Or, History and the Use of Science Fiction Farah Mendlesohn 119 12. (E)raced Visions: Women of Color and Science Fiction in the United States Elyce Rae Helford 127 13. Hard Magic, Soft Science: The Marginalization of Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason's Assemblers of Infinity and Bruce Boston's Stained Glass Rain Howard V. Hendrix 139 14. White Men Can't. . . : (De)centering Authority and Jacking into Phallic Economies in William Gibson's Count Zero Joseph Childers, Townsend Carr, and Regna Meenk 151 Bibliography of Works Related to Science Fiction, Canonization, and Marginalization 161 Index 171 About the Contributors 181 Acknowledgments We first wish to recognize all of the individuals who assisted in the creation and development of this volume, including Karen Bellinfante, Sidney Berger, Gladys Murphy, Sheryl Lewis, Darian Daries, Susan Korn, Karen Orchard, Eric S. Rabkin, Henry Snyder, and our anonymous peer reviewers. We also wish to thank Donald E. Palumbo and George F. Butler of Greenwood Press for their help in getting this volume into print, as well as our capable copyeditor Lynne Goetz. In response to a request for assistance, a number of distant colleagues provided suggestions for the bibliography, including Rene Beaulieu, John Boston, Steve Holland, Todd Mason, Jess Nevins, David Pringle, Robert Silverberg, Andy Sawyer, Gordon Van Gelder, Jeff VanderMeer, and Bud Webster. We finally would like to thank other friends, family members, and colleagues too numerous to name who provided needed support and encouragement during the preparation of this volume. This page intentionally left blank Chapter 1 Introduction: Masters of the Literary Universe Gary Westfahl Since the words "author" and "authority" derive from the same Latin root {augere, to make to grow), it is only natural for some authors and unsophisticated readers to regard authors as the major forces controlling literature. After all, according to this view, authors are the ones who create and shape their traditions and their works, and so they should be regarded as the definitive arbiters of the meaning and the value of their works. Yet members of the academy see matters differently. From their perspective, it is trained critics, not authors, who are best qualified to delineate literary traditions and to read, evaluate, and interpret literary texts. And, since they are the ones who largely determine the authors and works that stay in print, receive continuing attention, and are taught in school curricula, scholars and critics do exercise eventual, if not immediate, control over literature, deciding that certain texts and genres should be enshrined or "canonized" as fit subjects for research and pedagogy, while other texts and genres should be "marginalized," exiled from literary scholarship and literature classes. Of course, their hegemony does not emerge from an amicable consensus; rather, critics constantly dispute which works and writers should be included in the canon of officially sanctioned texts, and which ones should be excluded from that pantheon. Traditionalists insist that time-honored talents should maintain a central position in literary study, while insurgents champion a number of previously marginalized figures under the aegis of feminism, postmodernism, multiculturalism, gay and lesbian studies, or popular culture. Debates may ostensibly be based on aesthetics, but they are inextricably linked to ideological and personal concerns that can devolve into purely political questions: who in the community of scholars gets to decide what is literature and what is not literature? Each group claims the power to answer the question and challenges the judgments of rival factions. The thesis of this volume is that the literature of science fiction offers unusually fertile grounds for an examination of these continuing processes of literary canonization and marginalization. For science fiction has been one major bone of

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Science fiction occupies a peculiar place in the academic study of literature. For decades, scholars have looked at science fiction with disdain and have criticized it for being inferior to other types of literature. But despite the sentiments of these traditionalists, many works of science fiction
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