Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Salter, J Ashley

Titel

Alterity and hybridity in speculative fiction

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2006

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Speculative fiction unites qualities of popular science fiction with mainstream literary fiction. This hybrid genre represents the potential for science fiction to merge with canonical Literature. Novels by Margaret Atwood and Mary Doria Russell serve as test cases for the possibility that popular fiction and literary fiction achieve unity through the hybrid of speculative fiction. Comparison of these texts illuminates potentially irreconcilable goals and values that segregate the popular genre from the literary canon. Despite the potential for speculative fiction to bridge between science fiction and mainstream Literature, the standoff between literary and popular values persists. This raises the question of whether literary scholars might learn more from study of the undiluted popular "other," science fiction, than from the hybrid form of speculative fiction.