Binary First Edition, Signed (2 results)

Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. 1st Edition. 1st Printing. Signed to the title page. Brand new copy. Signed by Author(s).

Dust Jacket Condition: dj. First Edition. [Sci-Fi][Feminism][Literature] [LGBTQ] Le Guin, Ursula K. The Language of the Night, 1979, collects essays in which the author articulates the intellectual foundations of modern science fiction and fantasy while examining how speculative literature can interrogate gender, sexuality, and social hierarchy. Written during a period when feminist scholarship and LGBTQ discourse were reshaping literary criticism, the volume contains Le Guin's influential essay "Is Gender Necessary?" in which she revisits her novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and reexamines her own treatment of gender and language. Addressing the social transformations of the 1960s and 1970s feminist movement, Le Guin reflects on her evolving understanding of gender and political identity, writing: "I considered myself a feminist; I didn't see how you could be a thinking woman and not be a feminist; but I had never taken a step beyond the ground gained for us by Emmeline Pankhurst and Virginia Woolf." Through critical self-analysis and theoretical speculation, the essays situate science fiction as a literary form capable of examining the cultural construction of gender and imagining alternative social structures. Le Guin, Ursula K. The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction. New York: Putnam, 1979. Edited and with introductions by Susan Wood. Signed by Le Guin on the front endpaper. First edition. Original binding in original illustrated dust jacket designed by Virginia Kidd. The volume gathers Le Guin's reflections on the aesthetics and social function of speculative fiction while engaging directly with feminist and gender theory emerging in late twentieth-century literary discourse. In "Is Gender Necessary?" she explains the speculative premise behind the ambisexual inhabitants of the planet Gethen in The Left Hand of Darkness, where individuals assume male or female characteristics only during a reproductive phase known as kemmer. Le Guin describes the experiment directly: "There is no physiological sex role. I eliminated gender, to find out what was left." By removing fixed biological roles, the thought experiment challenges entrenched dualisms such as man and woman, ruler and ruled, user and used. She also considers the ethical implications of such a society, observing that "Because the Gethenians cannot have sexual intercourse unless both partners are willing, because they cannot rape or be raped." The essay further critiques her own reliance on masculine pronouns in the novel and acknowledges the linguistic limitations of English for discussing gender at a time before widely adopted gender-neutral pronouns. Science fiction during the late twentieth century increasingly served as a forum for feminist and queer theoretical inquiry, and Le Guin's essays helped shape that conversation by framing speculative narrative as a tool for examining cultural assumptions. Her conclusion emphasizes the exploratory function of the genre: "Finally, the question arises, is the book a Utopia? It seems to me that it is quite clearly not; it sees no practicable alternative to contemporary society. What it tries to do is to open up a new viewpoint." Original binding in original illustrated dust jacket designed by Virginia Kidd. Light wear to dust jacket extremities, else clean and tight. Overall near fine in very good dust jacket. Signed first edition of Le Guin's major collection of literary criticism connecting feminist thought, speculative fiction, and debates over gender and language in late twentieth-century literature. Signed.