The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction

The New Routledge Companion to Science Fiction provides an overview of the study of science fiction across multiple academic fields. It offers a new conceptualisation of the field today, marking the significant changes that have taken place in sf studies over the past 15 years.

Building on the pioneering research in the first edition, the collection reorganises historical coverage of the genre to emphasise new geographical areas of cultural production and the growing importance of media beyond print. It also updates and expands the range of frameworks that are relevant to the study of science fiction. The periodisation has been reframed to include new chapters focusing on science fiction produced outside the Anglophone context, including South Asian, Latin American, Chinese and African diasporic science fiction. The contributors use both well- established critical and theoretical approaches and embrace a range of new ones, including biopolitics, climate crisis, critical ethnic studies, disability studies, energy humanities, game studies, medical humanities, new materialisms and sonic studies.

This book is an invaluable resource for students and established scholars seeking to understand the vast range of engagements with science fiction in scholarship today.

Chapter 39 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Mark Bould (he/ him) is Professor of Film and Literature at the University of the West of England. He is the recipient of the Science Fiction Research Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts’ Distinguished Scholarship Award. His books include This Is Not A Science Fiction Textbook (with Steven Shaviro; 2024), The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture (2021), M. John Harrison: Critical Essays (with Rhys Williams 2019), Solaris (2014), SF Now (with Rhys Williams 2014), Africa SF (2013), Science Fiction: The Routledge Film Guidebook (2012) and The Routledge Concise History of Science Fiction (with Sherryl Vint; 2011).

Andrew M. Butler (he/ him) is the author of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2019) and Solar Flares: Science Fiction in the 1970s (2012). He is Managing Editor of Extrapolation and chair of judges for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Sherryl Vint (she/ her) is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and Chair of English at the University of California, Riverside. She is the recipient of the Science Fiction Research Association’s Innovative Scholarship and Lifetime Achievement Awards. Her books include Programming the Future: Politics, Resistance, and Utopia in Contemporary Speculative TV (with Jonathan Alexander; 2022), Biopolitical Futures in Twenty-First-Century Speculative Fiction (2021), Science Fiction: The Essential Knowledge (2021), After the Human: Culture, Theory and Criticism in the 21st Century (2020), The Futures Industry (2015), Science Fiction and Cultural Theory: A Reader (2015) and Science Fiction: A Guide for the Perplexed (2014).