On the Uses of Science Fiction in Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences: Meaning and Reading Effects
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F23%3A10467162" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/23:10467162 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=VKfK9fGZRB" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=VKfK9fGZRB</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sfs.2023.a900278" target="_blank" >10.1353/sfs.2023.a900278</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
On the Uses of Science Fiction in Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences: Meaning and Reading Effects
Original language description
Traditionally neglected if not despised by researchers in the humanities and social sciences, science fiction is changing status, being invested with new qualities and functions and, above all, a real epistemic value by leading scholars in the field of environmental humanities. Some of them not only turn to sf as a conceptual resource but go so far as to write counterfactual texts, told in the future or from impossible points of view, deploying sf narrative strategies to breathe new life into their academic writing. This paper considers what qualities these researchers explicitly attribute to sf, focusing on an emblematic case study-an article of speculative anthropology by Anna Tsing-to show how concretely these unconventional writing experiments can weave science and fiction into their textual fabric. Finally, we address the reading effects that these hybrid texts may stimulate by positioning Tsing's article in the field of contemporary sf, through the joint analysis of two fictions by Ted Chiang and Sylvie Lainé, which similarly ask how to account for a form of existence radically different from ours, relying on surprising comparisons between different sciences, living species, and instruments of knowledge. Our research approach contributes to grasping the current reconfiguration of knowledge and writing practices, allows us to formulate some hypotheses about today's use and relevance of sf in the field of environmental humanities, and finally points to new and unexpected areas of application for comparative literature in a time of ecological collapse.
Czech name
—
Czech description
—
Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
—
OECD FORD branch
60205 - Literary theory
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/EF16_019%2F0000734" target="_blank" >EF16_019/0000734: Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)<br>I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2023
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Science-Fiction Studies
ISSN
0091-7729
e-ISSN
2327-6207
Volume of the periodical
50
Issue of the periodical within the volume
2
Country of publishing house
US - UNITED STATES
Number of pages
30
Pages from-to
145-174
UT code for WoS article
001193269500001
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85164972666