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History, Expansionism, and Guardianship in Isaac Asimov’S Science Fiction

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History, Expansionism, and Guardianship in Isaac Asimov’S Science Fiction The Cowboy PoliTiCs of an enlighTened fuTure: History, Expansionism, and Guardianship in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction JARI KÄKELÄ UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI FACULTY OF ARTS The Cowboy PoliTiCs of an enlighTened fuTure: History, Expansionism, and Guardianship in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Jari KÄKelÄ Department of Modern Languages University of Helsinki © Jari Käkelä 2016 Layout and cover design by Jari Käkelä Cover background image: www.pixabay.com, public domain; foreground diagram collage by Jari Käkelä. ISBN 978-951-51-2404-3 (paperback) ISBN 978-951-51-2405-0 (PDF) Helsinki, 2016 ABSTRACT Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) was one of the central writers of the formative period of importance of the genre. This dissertation examines the themes of history, frontier expansionism, and guardianship in Asimov’s key works, the Robot and Foundation Robot and Foundation as serials in the 1940s and 1950s Astounding Science-Fiction publishing context is crucial in order to understand Asimov’s impact on the genre. Thus, this dissertation combines the contextual examination of Asimov’s main themes with a discussion of the views of the Astounding history. construct a sustainable future becomes the pivotal theme, both on the level of narration and on the level of characters that turn their knowledge of history into action. This will decline if stagnation is not reversed by frontier expansion. The pervasive frontier the intellectual frontier of the future. Finally, the historical and frontier aspects in Asimov’s series point toward the notion of guardianship and the aspiration to apply the understanding of both history and science to engineer a more peaceful, yet non- stagnant future. Throughout his career, then, Asimov displays a tension between a utopian desire and the pragmatic and techno-meritocratic solutions typical to Campbell’s stable of writers. that focuses on solutions and explanations, this dissertation demonstrates its central The readings presented make visible the ambiguous strains between Asimov’s cyclical models of history and his admiration of the Enlightenment ideal of progression, between individual freedom and the notion of guardianship, as well as between pragmatism and utopia. Informed by American history, Asimov’s series portrays how individuals make bold maneuvers in order to steer humankind toward a more sustainable future, thus engaging in what could be termed the cowboy politics of an enlightened future. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS as minimalistic as I remembered from my childhood readings, there is certain enough to transport the reader across enormous distances of space and time, function like graphs in a research report, showing the underlying complexity in their sparsely decorated laboratory of ideas. On the face of it, the process of writing a dissertation can often seem background, but all you see are talking heads and minimalist stage directions. In many ways, my primary supervisor Professor Bo Pettersson is to thank speed-of-light travel to our current location, giving invaluable navigational advice, and tirelessly improving my writing along the way. I would also like to of American frontier history in Asimov’s work. onwards, even, or especially, when the view from the ship window seems co-supervisor, often felt like the true captain to this starship and is due for gratitude of intergalactic scope. Keeping the ship crew motivated and intellectually alert by innumerable thought-provoking discussions, sharp- from talking about themselves in 3rd person plural, it seems). As I know you to be a fan of extended metaphor (hopefully even as clumsily inconsistent as this), I dedicate this opening section, and indeed this entire dissertation, to you. For the possibly remaining mistakes, however, I claim full responsibility. postgraduate students, Päivi Väätänen for friendship and help in practical ii Kaisa Koistinen, and the people at the FINFAR research meetings, which has and fantasy research, and given rise to the Fafnir and most recently Samuli Kaislaniemi – for making the often solitary work of writing a dissertation more fun and communal, and for engaging in various rants over research and life in general. As for enabling that communality, I owe my deepest gratitude to the and thus keeping me a part of the research community even when grant resolutions would have dictated otherwise. During these years, that was one constant that kept me going. Thank you for supporting the study of literature. Also special thanks to Taru Kamke and Tia Svanberg for their support and assistance in practical matters, and all the department staff for numerous Keinänen among others. And thank you for all the biscuits that I may or may not have nicked from the common coffee room in the course of these years. Sorry, and thank you! I would also like to thank the Finnish Doctoral Programme for Literary Studies for allowing to participate in their seminars as a self-funded member, including me in another community of research. The program directors during students Juha Raipola, Antti Ahmala, Laura Lindstedt, and Netta Nakari among others – thank you for perspective-widening feedback, inspiration, and camaraderie. In the course of these years I have also had the privilege of being overseas conferences, and made me feel at home conversing face-to-face – the inclusion meant a lot to the newcomer; and to the numerous brilliant iii researchers I have met at various conferences since then: Patrick B. Sharp, many others. A special thank you also goes out to my PhD pre-examiner Adam dissertation, and suggested potential avenues for further research. it exactly that I am doing and why does it take so long. Also thank you friends and bands, you know who you are, for the other creative life I have been leading after all, we were brought together by Asimov’s work, of all things – for the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, The University of Helsinki Research Foundation, in keeping the work going through the drier spells of research funding, and making it possible to present my work in conferences and connect with other researchers. Some parts of chapters 3 and 4 are based on previously published articles, although they have been thoroughly revised and expanded on in this Perpetual Urgency in Asimov and Heinlein.” Fafnir: Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research. 2:1 (2014); “Asimov’s Foundation Series as a Grand Narrative of Turnerian Future.” The Estonian Journal of English Studies 2:1 (2011); “Robots, Foundations and Endless Growth: The New York Review of Science Fiction 23:8 (2011); and “Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy: From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Cowboy Heroes.” Extrapolation 49:3 (2008). iv Table of ConTenTs Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... ii Abbreviations ................................................................................................. vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODuCTION .................................................................. 1 ....................................................................................... 1 1.2 Science Fiction, Theory, and Asimov ......................................................... 3 1.3 Asimov’s Grand Narrative: The Interconnected Robot Foundation Series ........................................................................... 8 1.4 Previous research on Asimov and Pulp Science Fiction .......................... 14 1.5 The Structure of This Study ...................................................................... 19 CHAPTER 2: GENRE AND CONTExT IN ASIMOv’S SCIENCE FICTION ..................................................... 23 2.1 Genre in Theory and Practice ................................................................... 24 2.2 Pulp Fiction and the Advent of the Cowboy Hero ................................... 25 2.3 Pulp Science Fiction and the Golden Age ................................................ 32 .......................... 42 CHAPTER 3: uNDERSTANDING HISTORy .......................................... 49 3.1 On Historical Fiction and Science Fiction ................................................ 51 3.2 Campbell, Asimov, Heinlein, and History ............................................... 57 3.3 The View of History in Asimov and Heinlein .......................................... 69 ........................ 99 CHAPTER 4: FRONTIER AND ExPANSIONISM ................................ 105 4.1 Science Fiction and the Frontier ............................................................ 106 to the Rise of Cowboy Heroes ................................................................ 113 4.3 Robots, Foundations, and Endless Growth ........................................... 133 4.4 Concluding Remarks: Reiterations of the Frontier ............................... 144 v CHAPTER 5: GuARDIANSHIP................................................................ 147 ........... 148 versus Individual Initiative .................................................................... 171 5.3 Beyond Guardianship: Asimov’s 1980s Novels and Collective Consciousness ............................................................... 186 5.4 Concluding Remarks: The Greatest Good ........................................................................ 208 CHAPTER 6: CONCLuSION: ASIMOv AND uTOPIA ...................... 211 WORKS CITED ........................................................................................
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