The Evolutionary Subject : Science Fiction from the Perspective of Darwinian Literary Studies
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Title: The Evolutionary Subject : Science Fiction from the Perspective of Darwinian Literary Studies Author: Bartłomiej Kuchciński Citation style: Kuchciński Bartłomiej. (2019). The Evolutionary Subject : Science Fiction from the Perspective of Darwinian Literary Studies. Praca doktorska. Katowice : Uniwersytet Śląski UNIVERSITY OF SILESIA IN KATOWICE FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY BARTŁOMIEJ KUCHCIŃSKI 5118 THE EVOLUTIONARY SUBJECT: SCIENCE FICTION FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF DARWINIAN LITERARY STUDIES PHD THESIS SUPERVISOR: Prof. zw. dr hab. Wojciech Kalaga SOSNOWIEC, 2019 UNIWERSYTET ŚLĄSKI W KATOWICACH WYDZIAŁ FILOLOGICZNY BARTŁOMIEJ KUCHCIŃSKI 5118 PODMIOT EWOLUCYJNY: FANTASTYKA NAUKOWA Z PERSPEKTYWY LITERATUROZNAWSTWA DARWINISTYCZNEGO ROZPRAWA DOKTORSKA Praca w języku angielskim PROMOTOR: Prof. zw. dr hab. Wojciech Kalaga SOSNOWIEC, 2019 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: INTO THE FRAY: THE SOCIOBIOLOGICAL PARADIGM AND SCIENTIFIC CONSILIENCE ..................................................................................... 7 The Scope of Darwinist Thought ............................................................................. 8 Evolutionary Explanations of Human Behaviour................................................... 12 Scientific Consilience ............................................................................................. 34 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 36 CHAPTER 2: DARWINIAN LITERARY STUDIES AND THE ROLE OF SCIENCE FICTION .................................................................................................. 38 Against Theory ....................................................................................................... 38 The Darwinian Paradigm for Culture and Literary Studies ................................... 43 The Adaptive Function of Art ................................................................................ 50 The Evolutionary Importance of Fiction ................................................................ 53 Science Fiction ....................................................................................................... 60 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 69 CHAPTER 3: TO BOLDLY GO… : SCIENCE FICTION AND SPACIAL EXPLORATION ........................................................................................................ 71 Science Fiction and Heterotopia ............................................................................. 72 The Narrative Pattern of Exploration ..................................................................... 75 The Evolutionary Necessity of Exploration ........................................................... 81 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 91 CHAPTER 4: ALL THE STRANGE, STRANGE CREATURES: DISGUST AND THE SCIENCE FICTION NOVUM ......................................................................... 92 Disgust .................................................................................................................... 95 The Estranging Disgustedness of the Alien ......................................................... 103 Disgusting Technologies ...................................................................................... 110 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 117 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 118 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................... 123 SUMMARY ............................................................................................................. 135 STRESZCZENIE ..................................................................................................... 137 1 INTRODUCTION What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts! Robert A. Heinlein There are peculiarities about science fiction and its study that can only be described as, to use a slightly modified phrase by William Gibson, paradoxical antagonisms. On the one hand, science fiction is overtly concerned with explorative encounters with radical novelty and yet, on the other hand, much of its poetics and thematic focus is surprisingly repetitive and formulaic. The repetitiveness does not seem, however, to affect science fiction’s popularity nor its entertainment or artistic value. To the contrary, many works of science fiction continue to be among the most popular, relevant and most critically acclaimed books or films of all time. A paradox of a different type concerns the academic study of science fiction. While it has a fairly long and a certainly rich history, there seem to be interesting gaps in it. In very rough terms, science fiction studies fall into two categories: the theoretical and the practical. The theoretical works are more focused on the formal aspects of science fiction (what makes science fiction science fiction) and thus its position vis-à-vis other types or genres of literature. The practical criticism of science fiction is, in turn, more interested in specific themes, problems or even particular authors and thus the relations between science fictional texts and broader cultural, social or political contexts. These two general categories of science fiction studies are indicative of a certain general characteristic of literary theory. The theoretical analyses all operate in the realm of specialized academic discourse of literary studies which, even though a 2 constituent part of the humanities, leaves very little space to account for the presence of the human agency of both the authors and their audiences in the creation and reception of science fiction. The more practically oriented studies, rather than being too far removed from the human factor, are in turn too specific in their piecemeal approach of analyzing given texts, or sets of texts, from particular analytical perspectives. The result is a constellation of, oftentimes brilliant, critical texts which, in its totality, lacks an integrating element, or an overarching meta-theory that would allow for relating the results of critical or interpretative explorations to one another. Because of that, even though both categories include analyses from an extremely large variety of perspectives, it is somewhat puzzling to note that there seem to be a number of elephant-in-the-room type of questions concerning science fiction that are seldom, if ever, asked, much less answered (and even if, then in terms far too general to be considered satisfactory): if radical novelty (Todorov’s “scientific marvelous” or Suvin’s “novum”) is the central formal feature of science fiction, how is that novelty (otherness or alienness) realized? What mechanisms govern the creation of novelty and what makes formulaic encounters with it not only entertaining but intellectually stimulating and culturally relevant? How does science fiction elicit a continuous interest in itself despite its formulaicness? What are the narrative patterns and what is their function? And, perhaps most importantly: what is science fiction even for? It is the aim of this thesis to answer these fundamental questions by introducing a meta- theory of science fiction derived from the insights of Darwinian Literary Studies. There is a noticeable tendency to regard Darwinian Literary Studies as both a marginal and an unwanted area of literary theory. A bastard child of natural sciences and anti-postructuralist positions within Theory, this relatively recent approach to the 3 study of literature distances itself from what it considers the dominant theoretical paradigms and is an attempt to explain the functions and the forms of literature in terms consistent with evolutionary psychology, and consequently, with the broader evolutionary paradigm. This paradigm, as Dominika Oramus argues in her recent book Darwinowskie paradygmaty. Mit teorii ewolucji w kulturze współczesnej, is not only the de facto organising paradigm for the life sciences, but has also established itself as a powerful presence in culture. As Oramus shows, evolutionary theory has profoundly influenced and shaped discourse in theology, teleology and metaphysics. It has codified the popular image of a scientist and of science itself. It has also proved to be a potent source of inspiration for the popular discourse of science fiction which insistently turns towards genetics, mutations and reversed, accelerated or otherwise alternative evolutions as its thematic focus.1 Despite its apparent marginality within literary studies, the influence of evolutionary theory on the humanities as a whole, has been significant. The publication of Edward O. Wilson’s 1971 Sociobiology, in which the author attempted to apply evolutionary criteria to the study of human behaviour sparked a massive controversy and