科幻小說可以被視為是一種批判的文類. 對於此文類能發揮它批判力量的可能性可以在科幻小說的定義中清楚的看見. 也就是說科幻小說必須是一種認知疏離的文類. 認知、疏離和新奇使得科幻小說可以對現在提出批判. 此論文的目的是要討論後現代與烏托邦的議題. 後現代被視為是晚期資本主義的一種文化優勢. 在後現代社會中, 歷史是被遺棄的, 進而造成一種缺乏深度的現象. 然而, 藉由一種收集、撿拾廢棄物的行為, 後現代缺乏深度的現象是可以被消除的. 烏托邦是屬於科幻小說的一種次文類. 也是一種對社會的批判. 烏托邦的成功取決於對他者的渴望.

Science fiction can be said as a kind of critical genre. The potential for the genre to exert its critical power is clearly observed by its definition. Namely, science fiction should be a literary genre of cognitive estrangement. Both cognition and estrangement together with another element, novum, make it possible for SF to make a critique on empirical present. The main purpose of the thesis is to discuss such issues as postmodernism and utopia. Postmodernism is considered as a cultural dominant of late capitalism. History in the postmodern society is rejected. This further contributes to a lack of depth. However, this postmodern depthlessness is negated through the act of collection, an act of gathering waste. Utopia, a subgenre of SF, is also treated as a social critique. The success of utopia depends on the desire for otherness.

Contents

Chinese Abstract ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- i
English Abstract ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ii
Introduction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1
Chapter One: The Poetics of Science Fiction ------------------------------------------- 8
Chapter Two: Postmodernism and Its Discontents: The Representation of History in The Gold Coast -------------------------------------------------------- 24
Chapter Three: Pacific Edge as the Utopian Embodiment of Intersubjective Desire-------------------------------------------------------------------- 45
Bibliography --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 64

Works Cited
Althusser, Louis. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Trans. Ben Brewster.
NY: Monthly Review, 1971.
---. For Marx. Trans. Ben Brewster. London: Verso, 1979.
Baudrillard, Jean. Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings. Ed. Mark Poster.
California: Stanford UP, 1988.
Benjamin, Jessica. The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem
of Domination. NY: Pantheon, 1988.
Bloch, Ernst. The Principle of Hope. Trans. Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and
Paul Knight. 3 Vols. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1986.
---. Natural Law and Human Dignity. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1987.
Broderick, Damien. Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction. London:
Routledge, 1995.
Buck-Morss, Susan. The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades
Project. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1989.
Elliott, Robert C. The Shape of Utopia: Studies in a Literary Genre. Chicago: U of
Chicago P, 1970.
Foote, Bud. “A Conversation with Kim Stanley Robinson.” Science-Fiction
Studies 21.1 (Mar 1994): 51-66.
Franko, Carol. “Working the ‘ In-Between’: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Utopian
Fiction.” Science-Fiction Studies 21.2 (July 1994): 191-211.
Freedman, Carl. Critical Theory and Science Fiction. Hanover, NH: UP of New England, 2000.
Glotfelty, Cheryll, and Harold Fromm, eds. The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in
Literary Ecology. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996.
Hardt, Michael and Kathi Weeks. Introduction. The Jameson Reader. By Fredric
Jameson. Eds. Michael Hardt and Kathi Weeks. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
James, Edward. “Before the Novum: The Prehistory of Science Fiction Criticism.”
Learning from Other Worlds: Estrangement, Cognition, and the Politics of Science Fiction and Utopia. Ed. Patrick Parrinder. Durham: Duke UP, 2001. 19-35.
Jameson, Fredric. Marxism and Form: Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of
Literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1971.
---. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell UP, 1991.
---. “Progress Versus Utopia; or, Can We Imagine the Future?” Science-Fiction
Studies 27 (July 1982): 147-59.
---. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke UP,
1991.
Jennings, Michael William. Dialectical Images: Walter Benjamin’s Theory of
Literary Criticism. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1987.
Kellner, Douglas. Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond.
Cambridge: Polity, 1989.
Kumar, Krishan. Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times. Oxford: Blackwell,
1991.
Lane, Richard J. Jean Baudrillard. London and NY: Routledge, 2000.
Levitas, Ruth. The Concept of Utopia. NY: Philip Allan, 1990.
Lukَacs, Georg. History and Class Consciousness. Trans. Rodney Livingstone.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1971.
Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of
Knowledge. Ed. Bryan S. Turner. London: Routledge, 1991.
Merril, Judith. History and Definition of Science Fiction. 14 Jan. 2005
<http://alcor.concordia.ca/~talfred/sf-def.htm>.
Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian
Imagination. NY and London: Methuen, 1986.
---. “ ‘Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win’: On Science Fiction, Totality and Agency in
the 1990s.” Science Fiction, Critical Frontiers. Eds. Karen Sayer and John
Moore. London: Macmillan, 2000. 48-65.
Parrinder, Patrick. Science Fiction: Its Criticism and Teaching. London: Methuen,
1980.
Robinson, Kim Stanley. The Gold Coast. NY: Tom Dougherty Associates, 1988.
---. Pacific Edge. NY: Tom Dougherty Associates, 1988.
---. History and Definition of Science Fiction. 14 Jan. 2005
<http://alcor.concordia.ca/~talfred/sf-def.htm>.
Scholes, Robert and Eric Rabkin. Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision.
NY: Oxford UP, 1977.
Shklovsky, Victor. “Art as Technique.” Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays.
Trans. and Introduced by Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1965. 3-24.
Slotkin, Alan R. “The Ecological Newspeak of Kim Stanley Robinson.” American
Speech 72.4 (Winter 1997): 440-43.
Stratton, Susan. “The Messiah and the Greens: The Shape of Environmental Action
in Dune and Pacific Edge.” Extrapolation 42.4 (Winter 2001): 303-16.
Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction. London: Yale UP, 1979.
---. Positions and Presuppositions in Science Fiction. London: Macmillan, 1988.
Williams, Raymond. Problems in Materialism and Culture. London: Verso, 1980.
Wohlfarth, Irving. “Et Cetera? The Historian as Chiffonnier.” New German
Critigque 39 (Fall 1986): 142-68.
Wolmark, Jenny. Aliens and Others: Science Fiction, Feminism and Postmodernism. NY: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993.
Zipes, Jack. Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales.
Rev. and expanded ed. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2002.