INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely afreet reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 THE CONSTRUCTION OF RACE AND THE REPRESENTATION OF ETHNIC DIFFERENCE IN AMERICAN AND BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy In the Graduate School of The Ohio State University by Javier A. Martinez, B. A., M. A. The Ohio State University 1998 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Debra Moddelmog, adviser ^ . f/ Christian Zacher Adviser Anthony Libby Department of English UMI Number: 9834029 UMI Microform 9834029 Copyright 1998, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arhor, MI 48103 Copyright by Javier A. Martinez 1998 ABSTRACT This study examines how racial and ethnic difference are constructed in U. S. and British science fiction, or sf. I argue that sf has traditionally excluded the visibly ethnic Other and has often portrayed him/her as a source of genetic corruption and as a social burden. Part One of the study investigates proto-sf between 1859-1911 and is divided into two chapters. Chapter One focuses on the Future War novel, a narrative that adopts the rhetoric of social Darwinism and the visions of eugenic policy to express a notion of white supremacy through fantasies of military conflict. Chapter Two looks at the Lost World novel, a narrative that replays colonization fantasies of the West by attempting to enact an ahistoric process of exploration and exploitation. Part Two of this study examines pulp sf from 1911-1964 and is also divided into two chapters. Chapter Three scrutinizes how early pulp sf written between 1911 and 1940 enacts a fantasy of what sf critic John Huntington refers to as "nonpolitical power," what I argue is an expression of white power. Chapter Four continues this analysis with a perusal of late pulp sf published between 1941-1964. Sf of the late pulp age has traditionally been read as more "mature" in theme and style than its predecessors. I argue that a more accurate reading is to understand this maturation process as an obfuscation of sf s continued ideology of racism. I close by discussing the current trend of white authors to include people of color in their narratives. I argue that while this strategy is well-meaning, it often uses people of color and non-Westem cultures as sites of exoticism. I contrast this development with sf written by authors of color who use sf tropes to undermine the genre's conservative and racist politics. I conclude that in order to survive the current crisis in publishing and to become a true literature of ideas and vision, sf must redevelop itself according to principles of ethnic diversity and democratic politics. VITA June 10,1969 .......................Bom - McAllen, Texas 1990..................................... B. A., The University of Texas at Austin 1993..................................... M. A., The University of Texas--Pan American FIELD OF STUDY Major Field: English Studies in literary theory, science and technology studies, twentieth- century American and British literature. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT............................................................................................ ii VITA iv PREFACE ............................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION TO PART ONE: SOCIAL DARWINISM AND EUGENICS IN THE UNITED STATES AND BRITAIN ............................................... 9 CHAPTER 1. THE ANNIHILATION OF DIFFERENCE: THE FUTURE WAR NOVEL IN THE UNITED STATES AND BRITAIN ......................... 27 2. THE LOST RACE NOVEL AND THE FANTASY OF RACIAL PURITY ................................... 100 INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO: THE PULP AGE OF SCIENCE FICTION.............................................. 148 CHAPTER 3. EARLY PULP SCIENCE FICTION AND THE ROMANCE OF WHITE POWER ......................... 153 4. "DON'T WORRY: I'M NOT GOING POLITICAL ON YOU": IDEOLOGY, WHITE POWER, AND NARRATIVE STRATEGY IN THE LATE PULP AGE ................................................. 221 PART THREE; CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE FICTION AND THE RACIALIZED SUBJECT CHAPTER 5. AUTHORS OF COLOR, PROBLEMS OF REPRESENTATION, AND SF AT THE CLOSE OF THE MILLENNIUM......................... 300 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................. 344 VI PREFACE This study focuses on the construction of race and the representation of ethnic difference in American and British science fiction, or sf. Historically, the subject of race in sf and sf criticism has been relegated to footnotes or a passing mention to some of the few contemporary sf authors of color. As of this writing, there has yet to appear a full-length discussion of how the subjects of race and ethnic difference are treated in sf narratives, and only a handful of essays addressing these issues have been published. In an attempt to redress this situation, this project takes some first steps toward developing an understanding of sf as a political enterprise motivated and defined by racial difference. I argue throughout this study that sf has traditionally used the rhetoric of science and the benefits of technology to obscure or deny certain types of political realizations. More to the point, sf has, at least since the late nineteenth-century, enacted a fantasy of power aimed at the marginalization and/or erasure of visibly ethnic Others. This exclusion has been rationalized time and time again by appeals to scientific transcendence in one form or another, from the biological theories of evolutionism and genetic research popular at the tum-of the-century, to fetishes of mathematics and logic in recent decades. This study maps those strategies and clarifies their workings in an attempt to understand how racism has informed the genre and in hope that, by calling attention to them, they will not be repeated. My study opens with an examination of the development of social Danwinism and the emergence of eugenic research, both of which occur in the late nineteenth-century. I argue that these racist cultural movements had a pronounced effect on what sf critics refer to as proto-science fiction, a field of literature considered a precursor to sf. While dates for the emergence of proto-sf differ between critics, I limit myself here to works published after 1859, the year Danwin published his treatise on evolution. Darwin's theory of adaptation and change in the natural world was corrupted and recast as social Darwinism, a notion of competition between animal species and, by extension, nationalities and human races, for supremacy. In Chapter 1 ,1 examine how social Darwinism, especially the Spencerian concept of "survival of the fittest," influenced the development of the Future War novel. These novels make a fetish of military technology and present scenarios where the West, especially the U. S. and Britain, conquers the world through superior force. In addition to nationalist fantasies of power, these narratives play out a racial fantasy where as part of their conquests, the victor nation/s destroy and/or erase the racial and cultural identities of their victims. In these novels, warfare is part of the evolutionary principle: the weakest races invariably are portrayed as non-Westemers and/or visibly ethnic Others and the strongest,or fittest humans, are Western, primarily U. S. and British, white males. In Chapter 1, I examine the works of such well-known authors a Jack London, specifically his short story "The Unparalleled Invasion" (1910) and his novella "The Scarlet Plague" (1912). I also look at lesser-known but important novels, like Pierton Dooneris anti-immigration tract The Last Days of the Republic (1880), Louis Tracy's novel of white racial supremacv The Final War 118961. and a novel by the enigmatic biracial author M. P. Shiel, The Yellow Peril (1899). My reading investigates how the rhetorical strategies these novels employ justify their ideology of racism. In Chapter 2 ,1 examine the Lost Race novel. These narratives of adventure, I argue, replay colonialist