Utopia and Ecological Exile in Women's

GREEN COSMIC DREAMS GREEN COSMIC DREAMS: UTOPIA AND ECOLOGICAL EXILE IN WOMEN’S EXOPLANETARY SCIENCE FICTION by SELENA MIDDLETON, B.A., B.A., M.A., M.T. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Selena Middleton, 2019 McMaster University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2019) Hamilton, Ontario (English) TITLE: Green Cosmic Dreams: Utopia and Ecological Exile in Women’s Exoplanetary Science Fiction AUTHOR: Selena Middleton, B.A. (McMaster University), B.A. (York University), M.A. (York University), M.T. (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto) SUPERVISOR: Dr. Catherine Grisé NUMBER OF PAGES: v, 296 ABSTRACT Exile is not only an appropriate lens through which to view the ecological, social, and psychological destabilizations of the Anthropocene, but also as a state which can inspire the flexibility and creativity necessary to survive difficult times through ecologically-connected states of being. Examinations of literary alienation and responses to this condition in this project are confined to women’s exoplanetary science fiction which anticipates the experience of physical and emotional separation from planet Earth. In contextualizing experiences of exile from our planet of origin and the expressions of such in women’s science fiction literature, this project interrogates selected cultural movements in human relationships to the environment, separation from the environment, and resistances to that estrangement through the concept of exile. Chapter One considers the Western myth of the lost paradise and the ways in which the Garden of Eden has contributed to Western conceptions of environmental and human perfection and belonging and the persistent idea of working one’s way back to Eden. In contrast to this idea, I present analyses of James Tiptree Jr.’s A Momentary Taste of Being and Molly Gloss’s The Dazzle of Day, both of which illustrate that working toward perfection is an ultimately stagnating and often violent move. Chapter Two, mounting further challenges to the Western paradise and its reverberations through environmental discourse, frames science fiction’s initial acquiescence to narratives of colonization and later feminist rejection of these narratives. Analyzing the connections between colonial structures, the environment, and beings considered nonhuman or less-than-human in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest and Joan Slonczewski’s A Door Into Ocean, this chapter describes the psychological and emotional estrangements necessary to survive and resist colonization and its ecological destruction and contextualizes experiences of exile. Chapter Two argues that though exile is often a destructive process, it can form a basis with which to resist entrenched social structures. Finally, Chapter Three examines the ways in which Indigenous science fiction, working in a different historical and cultural context than that of the Western feminist texts discussed in the previous two chapters, emphasizes an experience of and approach to exilic destabilizations which centres on what Gerald Vizenor calls “survivance”—the survival of colonial genocide and resistance to further colonial impositions. While Lee Maracle’s “The Void” and Mari Kurisato’s “Imposter Syndrome” utilize exoplanetary distance from Earth’s ecosystems to illustrate modes of survivance, they also demonstrate the ways in which relations to the land are maintained through interrelational rather than hierarchical subjectivities, and demonstrate the resilience intrinsic to interconnected ecological systems. In sum, the estranged position of women’s exoplanetary science fiction emerges as critical of the hierarchical structures which have resulted in widespread ecological collapse, and imparts the perspective necessary not only to challenge those structures but also to survive their destabilizations. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks must first go to my committee, whose careful reading and encouragement helped me to think through this project’s many entanglements. Catherine Grisé has been a supportive mentor, helping me to find and focus my optimism while dealing with the topic of dark and uncertain futures. Grace Kehler’s sharp insight has shaped this project from the beginning and I am forever grateful for her proffered guidance and the personal care with which she tended to me throughout this process. Daniel Coleman’s fastidiousness helped to further hone my argument and highlight this project’s unique perspective. Thanks must also go to Veronica Hollinger, whose comments provided an invaluable roadmap to the necessary concision and clarity of this version of the project, and to my external examiner, Gerry Canavan, whose enthusiasm and encouragement helped to make this project’s final hurdles surmountable. My speculative fiction colleagues at McMaster have been indispensable allies; thank you Kristen Shaw and Ann Tso for all your support, insights, and commiseration. Thanks must go, as well, to the administrative staff of the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster: Aurelia Gatto Pinto, Antoinette Somo, Angela Zaya, Ilona Forgo-Smith, and Sophie Goellnicht for the support which made this work possible. I am grateful in this endeavour to have benefited from the support of my immediate and extended family: my parents, John and Bernice Kerr, who have been more sure of my success than I ever have; my aunt Isabel Kerr, who provided both material and emotional sustenance all my life but especially during my enrolment in the doctoral program; my sister, Whitney Kerr, who fielded endless text messages and always responded with encouragement and humour; my adopted aunt, Annie Halliwell, for whom I wish the unfailing optimism with which she always saw my struggles and progress. Thanks go as well to both Marjorie and Anne Middleton, whose consistent smiles and kind words were buoying. Finally, I thank my partner, Tim Middleton, who encouraged me to pursue the doctoral degree to which I’d always aspired and supported me through the messy process; and thanks, too, to my children Istra and Emeth Middleton, whose futures are inspiring and inspired. For my loved ones I have lost since beginning this project and before—John Kerr (2004) and Isabel Kerr (2014)—I am thankful for the ways in which your presence in my life has shaped me and the ways in which my memories of you ensure your continued influence. You didn’t get to see the finished product, but you are in these pages and in everything I do. Love you both, forever. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................1 Packing for Exile: Science Fiction, Exoplanetary Alienation and Affective Ecologies CHAPTER ONE.....................................................................................................................56 Giving up the Garden: Edenic Entanglements in Space CHAPTER TWO..................................................................................................................131 Living Outside the Garden: Exilic Subjectivities in Colonized Spaces CHAPTER THREE...............................................................................................................197 Survivance in Exile: Exoplanetary Land Relations in Indigenous Science Fiction CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................270 Climate Change Kinships: Making Science Fiction Connections in Unstable Times BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................278 Ph.D. Thesis – S. Middleton; McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies INTRODUCTION Packing for Exile: Science Fiction, Exoplanetary Alienation and Affective Ecologies In a 2012 study on the effect of nature on human cognition, a team of psychologists sent eight hiking groups into remote areas of Alaska, Colorado, Maine and Washington, in which they were immersed for between four and six days. After intermittently testing the problem-solving capabilities of the hikers, Atchley et al. discovered that the longer a person spends immersed in a natural environment, the more their creativity increases. Atchley suggests that the brain’s response to the stimuli of wilderness is that “natural environments, like the environment that we evolved in, are associated with exposure to stimuli that elicit a kind of gentle, soft fascination, and are both emotionally positive and low-arousing” (Atchley et al. 2). But the remote areas of Alaska, Colorado, Maine, and Washington—like the rest of the planet—are changing. These shifts, wrought by climate change, may likewise transform the human response to the environment. Whether future altered environments will evoke the same positive feeling or creative fascination as that in which humankind evolved is unknown. Science fiction, however, imagines the effects of altered environments and lost worlds on human feeling and sociality. This project engages with the science fiction of both European-descended settlers (Chs 1 and 2) and Indigenous peoples (Ch 3) of Canada and the United States that attests to experiences of exile and alienation while resisting a simple vision of loss. Engaging with the mythological frameworks of paradise and exile—and expanding the idea of exile to include ecological perspectives and the historical and

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