Plants in Science Fiction: Speculative Vegetation
(Hardback)
Publishing Details
Plants in Science Fiction: Speculative Vegetation
By (Author) Katherine E. Bishop
Edited by David Higgins
Edited by Jerry Mtt
University of Wales Press
University of Wales Press
11th August 2020
United Kingdom
Classifications
Professional and Scholarly
Non Fiction
Science fiction
Film history, theory or criticism
809.38762
Physical Properties
Hardback
272
Width 138mm, Height 216mm
Description
Plants have played key roles in science fiction novels, graphic novels, and film. John Wyndhams triffids, Algernon Blackwoods willows, and Han Kangs sprouting woman are just a few examples. Plants surround us, sustain us, pique our imaginations, and inhabit our metaphors but in many ways they remain opaque. The scope of their alienation is as broad as their biodiversity. And yet, literary reflections of plant-life are driven, as are many threads of science fictional inquiry, by the concerns of today. Plants in Science Fiction is the first-ever collected volume on plants in science fiction. Its original essays argue that plant-life in SF is transforming our attitudes toward morality, politics, economics, and cultural life at large; questioning and shifting our understandings of institutions, nations, borders, and boundaries; erecting and dismantling new visions of utopian and dystopian futures.
Reviews
Science fiction teaches us to be-with others better. This is the core argument of Plants in Science Fiction, captured in one of its chapters and suffused throughout. Readers will come away with a profound and challenging understanding of what it means to be human, as well as a deep appreciation for the critical function of science fiction in a threatened world.
-- Eric Otto, Florida Gulf Coast University
Plants in Science Fiction demonstrates that science fiction and ecocriticism have much to say to each other. By considering speculative vegetation, of course, we learn much about our own lives in the present moment on Earth.
-- Scott Slovic, Editor-in-Chief, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
Author Bio
Katherine E. Bishop PhD is Assistant Professor at Miyazaki International College. David Higgins PhD teaches English at Inver Hills College in Minnesota. Jerry Maatta PhD is Associate Professor (Docent) at the Department of Literature, Uppsala University, Sweden
