Human Evolution And Fantastic Victorian Fiction

Author : Anna Neill
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2021-06-24
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781000392722

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Human Evolution and Fantastic Victorian Fiction by Anna Neill Pdf

Following the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Victorian anthropology made two apparently contradictory claims: it distinguished "civilized man" from animals and "primitive" humans and it linked them though descent. Paradoxically, it was by placing human history in a deep past shaped by minute, incremental changes (rather than at the apex of Providential order) that evolutionary anthropology could assert a new form of human exceptionalism and define civilized humanity against both human and nonhuman savagery. This book shows how fantastic Victorian and early Edwardian fictions—utopias, dystopias, nonsense literature, gothic horror, and children’s fables—untether human and nonhuman animal agency from this increasingly orthodox account of the deep past. As they imagine worlds that lift the evolutionary constraints on development and as they collapse evolution into lived time, these stories reveal (and even occupy) dynamic landscapes of cognitive descent that contest prevailing anthropological ideas about race, culture, and species difference.

Author : Herbert George Wells
Publisher : Good Press
Page : 100 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2020-12-08
Category : Art
ISBN : EAN:4064066067304

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The Time Machine by Herbert George Wells Pdf

Embark on a thrilling journey through time with Wells' iconic "The Time Machine." This science fiction masterpiece delves into speculative fiction, exploring the possibilities and perils of time travel. Set in the 1890s, the novel is a testament to Wells' visionary imagination and his ability to craft narratives that transcend time.

Author : Shazia Sadaf,Aroosa Kanwal
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 158 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2023-09-26
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781000936926

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Contemporary Pakistani Speculative Fiction and the Global Imaginary by Shazia Sadaf,Aroosa Kanwal Pdf

As the first book-length study of emergent Pakistani speculative fiction written in English, this critical work explores the ways in which contemporary Pakistani authors extend the genre in new directions by challenging the cognitive majoritarianism (usually Western) in this field. Responding to the recent Afro science fiction movement that has spurred non-Western writers to seek a democratization of the broader genre of speculative fiction, Pakistani writers have incorporated elements from djinn mythology, Qur'anic eschatology, "Desi" (South Asian) traditions, local folklore, and Islamic feminisms in their narratives to encourage familiarity with alternative world views. In five chapters, this book analyzes fiction by several established Pakistani authors as well as emerging writers to highlight the literary value of these contemporary works in reconciling competing cognitive approaches, blurring the dividing line between "possibilities" and "impossibilities" in envisioning humanity’s collective future, and anticipating the future of human rights in these envisioned worlds.

Author : Wessam Elmeligi
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 169 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2023-08-29
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781000925388

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Dystopia in Arabic Speculative Fiction by Wessam Elmeligi Pdf

Dystopia in Arabic Speculative Fiction: A Poetics of Distress unpacks the nuanced Arabic contribution to speculative fiction. Part of a larger project by Elmeligi to formulate a poetics of literary theory to read Arabic literature, this book examines Arabic dystopian fiction from the lens of social causes of psychological distress. The selected novels combine works by authors already established in studies by Western scholars and many that have not been translated before or have not received enough scholarly attention, yet. The novels represent an array of Arab countries, including Algerian, Egyptian, Jordanian, Kuwaiti, Mauritanian, Syrian, and Tunisian authors. It also highlights the contribution of women authors to Arabic speculative fiction. This book enriches the conversation about what is quite possibly a significant speculative fiction turn in the Arabic novel, as well as provides a new theoretical approach to read such complex and innovative literature.

Author : John Glendening
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2016-03-16
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317032472

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The Evolutionary Imagination in Late-Victorian Novels by John Glendening Pdf

Dominated by Darwinism and the numerous guises it assumed, evolutionary theory was a source of opportunities and difficulties for late Victorian novelists. Texts produced by Wells, Hardy, Stoker, and Conrad are exemplary in reflecting and participating in these challenges. Not only do they contend with evolutionary complications, John Glendening argues, but the complexities and entanglements of evolutionary theory, interacting with multiple cultural influences, thoroughly permeate the narrative, descriptive, and thematic fabric of each. All the books Glendening examines, from The Island of Doctor Moreau and Dracula to Heart of Darkness, address the interrelationship between order and chaos revealed and promoted by evolutionary thinking of the period. Glendening's particular focus is on how Darwinism informs novels in relation to a late Victorian culture that encouraged authors to stress, not objective truths illuminated by Darwinism, but rather the contingencies, uncertainties, and confusions generated by it and other forms of evolutionary theory.

Author : Carolyn Lau
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2023-07-28
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781000912340

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Posthuman Subjectivity in the Novels of J.G. Ballard by Carolyn Lau Pdf

This book proposes that Ballard’s novels extrapolate the formation of a posthuman subjectivity that is centred around an affirmative understanding of what a human body can do. This new subjectivity transforms constraints and prescribed desires into creative openings in a hyper-mediated control society that conditions docile bodies through technology and consumerism. Set in surrealist predicaments in postwar affluent Western societies, Ballard’s novels remind us of the fragile veneer of order in the familiar every day. In these moments of crisis, complacent characters are compelled to undergo a process of defamiliarisation and transformation of their understanding of the self and the body. The ability to form new relationships with the unfamiliar is imperative to survival in a hostile environment. Ballard delineates both the possibilities and obstacles of forming these relationships. In particular, the author attributes the failure to do so to the irreconcilable contradictions of late capitalism.

Author : Wendy C. Nielsen
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2022-05-30
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781000582413

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Motherless Creations by Wendy C. Nielsen Pdf

This book explains the elimination of maternal characters in American, British, French, and German literature before 1890 by examining motherless creations: Pygmalion’s statue, Frankenstein’s creature, homunculi, automata, androids, golems, and steam men. These beings typify what is now called artificial life, living systems made through manufactured means. Fantasies about creating life ex-utero were built upon misconceptions about how life began, sustaining pseudoscientific beliefs about the birthing body. Physicians, inventors, and authors of literature imagined generating life without women to control the process of reproduction and generate perfect progeny. Thus, some speculative fiction before 1890 belongs to the literary genealogy of transhumanism, the belief that technology will someday transform some humans into superior, immortal beings. Female motherless creations tend to operate as sexual companions. Male ones often emerge as subaltern figures analogous to enslaved beings, illustrating that reproductive rights inform readers’ sense of who counts as human in fictions of artificial life.

Author : Antonio Alcala Gonzalez,Carl H. Sederholm
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 347 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2021-12-30
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781000531657

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Lovecraft in the 21st Century by Antonio Alcala Gonzalez,Carl H. Sederholm Pdf

Lovecraft in the 21st Century assembles reflections from a wide range of perspectives on the significance of Lovecraft’s influence in contemporary times. Building on a focus centered on the Anthropocene, adaptation, and visual media, the chapters in this collection focus on the following topics: Adaptation of Lovecraft’s legacy in theater, television, film, graphic narratives, video games and game artwork The connection between the writer’s legacy and his life Reading Lovecraft in light of contemporary criticism about capitalism, the posthuman, and the Anthropocene How contemporary authors have worked through the implicit racial and sexual politics in Lovecraft’s fiction Reading Lovecraft’s fiction in light of contemporary approaches to gender and sexuality

Author : Leo Justin Henkin
Publisher : Russell & Russell Publishers
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 1963
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : UCSC:32106018605656

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Darwinism in the English Novel, 1860-1910 by Leo Justin Henkin Pdf

Author : Allen A. Debus
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 231 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : History
ISBN : 9780786426720

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Dinosaurs in Fantastic Fiction by Allen A. Debus Pdf

"This literary survey examines how paleoliterature originated, developed and matured from its inception to the present day. It follows trends on the crafting of classic dinosaurs, investigating the figurative and metaphoric meaning of fictional dinosaursand related prehistoria. An appendix provides brief summaries of deserving dinosaur texts, organized alphabetically by author. "--Provided by publisher.

Author : John Glendening
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 2016-03-16
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317032465

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The Evolutionary Imagination in Late-Victorian Novels by John Glendening Pdf

Dominated by Darwinism and the numerous guises it assumed, evolutionary theory was a source of opportunities and difficulties for late Victorian novelists. Texts produced by Wells, Hardy, Stoker, and Conrad are exemplary in reflecting and participating in these challenges. Not only do they contend with evolutionary complications, John Glendening argues, but the complexities and entanglements of evolutionary theory, interacting with multiple cultural influences, thoroughly permeate the narrative, descriptive, and thematic fabric of each. All the books Glendening examines, from The Island of Doctor Moreau and Dracula to Heart of Darkness, address the interrelationship between order and chaos revealed and promoted by evolutionary thinking of the period. Glendening's particular focus is on how Darwinism informs novels in relation to a late Victorian culture that encouraged authors to stress, not objective truths illuminated by Darwinism, but rather the contingencies, uncertainties, and confusions generated by it and other forms of evolutionary theory.

Author : John Glendening
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2013-04-17
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781134088348

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Science and Religion in Neo-Victorian Novels by John Glendening Pdf

Criticism about the neo-Victorian novel — a genre of historical fiction that re-imagines aspects of the Victorian world from present-day perspectives — has expanded rapidly in the last fifteen years but given little attention to the engagement between science and religion. Of great interest to Victorians, this subject often appears in neo-Victorian novels including those by such well-known authors as John Fowles, A. S. Byatt, Graham Swift, and Mathew Kneale. This book discusses novels in which nineteenth-century science, including geology, paleontology, and evolutionary theory, interacts with religion through accommodations, conflicts, and crises of faith. In general, these texts abandon conventional religion but retain the ethical connectedness and celebration of life associated with spirituality at its best. Registering the growth of nineteenth-century secularism and drawing on aspects of the romantic tradition and ecological thinking, they honor the natural world without imagining that it exists for humans or functions in reference to human values. In particular, they enact a form of wonderment: the capacity of the mind to make sense of, creatively adapt, and enjoy the world out of which it has evolved — in short, to endow it with meaning. Protagonists who come to experience reality in this expansive way release themselves from self-anxiety and alienation. In this book, Glendening shows how, by intermixing past and present, fact and fiction, neo-Victorian narratives, with a few instructive exceptions, manifest this pattern.

Author : Jessica Straley
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 271 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2016-06-06
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781107127524

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Evolution and Imagination in Victorian Children's Literature by Jessica Straley Pdf

An interdisciplinary study that explores the impact of evolutionary theory on Victorian children's literature.

Author : Louis James
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2008-04-15
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781405152280

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The Victorian Novel by Louis James Pdf

This inspiring survey challenges conventional ways of viewing the Victorian novel. Provides time maps and overviews of historical and social contexts. Considers the relationship between the Victorian novel and historical, religious and bibliographic writing. Features short biographies of over forty Victorian authors, including Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Offers close readings of over 30 key texts, among them Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), as well as key presences, such as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (Pt 1, 1676, Pt 2, 1684). Also covers topics such as colonialism, scientific speculation, the psychic and the supernatural, and working class reading.

Author : Jason Marc Harris
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2016-04-15
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317134657

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Folklore and the Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction by Jason Marc Harris Pdf

Jason Marc Harris's ambitious book argues that the tensions between folk metaphysics and Enlightenment values produce the literary fantastic. Demonstrating that a negotiation with folklore was central to the canon of British literature, he explicates the complicated rhetoric associated with folkloric fiction. His analysis includes a wide range of writers, including James Barrie, William Carleton, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Sheridan Le Fanu, Neil Gunn, George MacDonald, William Sharp, Robert Louis Stevenson, and James Hogg. These authors, Harris suggests, used folklore to articulate profound cultural ambivalence towards issues of class, domesticity, education, gender, imperialism, nationalism, race, politics, religion, and metaphysics. Harris's analysis of the function of folk metaphysics in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century narratives reveals the ideological agendas of the appropriation of folklore and the artistic potential of superstition in both folkloric and literary contexts of the supernatural.