DOCSLIB.ORG

SPJ 2020Q2 Issue As

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

2020 ♦ 2 Barnicle King Benedetti Martín Rodríguez Clarke Dibble Mina Imago Fire Shultz Khan Turner www.sciphijournal.org ♦ [email protected] 1 CONTENTS CREW Co-editors: Ádám Gerencsér 3 Editorial Mariano Martín Rodríguez Communications: Gina Adela Ding 4 « Cube» Kaolin Imago Fire Webmaster: Ismael Osorio Martín 5 « The Real Story» Contact: [email protected] Jonathan Turner Twitter: @sciphijournal 9 « Faith in the Future, or, Does Religion Have a Place in Science Fiction?» Jim Clarke 15 « Ragnarok» Alessandro Benedetti 17 « Red Card» Madeline Barnicle 19 « Free Will, or the Sriendi Vastar Method» E. E. King 22 « For a Truly Multicultural Science Fiction: Do Translations Matter?» Mariano Martín Rodríguez 26 « The Meaning of His Own Words» Andy Dibble 29 « How to Check if Your Peacekeeper-2000 Is Loaded» David F. Shultz 32 « Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Bug?» Mina 37 « Last Entry » Ahmed A. Khan 2 Editorial their library armchairs. Co-editor Ádám marvelled time and again at the manner in which the world that to him seemed to be closing in, was at the same time opening up for his little daughter, barely three years old, who is at the age when the mere shadow of a cloud on the balcony is ripe with speculative Lectori salutem. possibilities. As our European home base is emerging from the In a way, science fiction (and sci-phi in particular) is a clutches of the pandemic (or at least its first wave), genre that at its core sets out to inspire in readers that we hope that our readers, authors and their loved same inclination towards subliminal wonder, as if ones have weathered the storm in good health and seeing a new phenomenon through the eyes of a high spirits. child. May we never lose our ability to revel in this We resume our standard format this quarter, but playfulness of the human mind! given the doom and gloom of recent months, we try Speculatively yours, to add a cheerful touch this time, with quite a few stories that strike a light-hearted cord. These are the co-editors punctuated by three essays, each courting controversy # in their own particular way; be it the relationship between faith and science fiction, the dearth of SFF ps: While most of the SPJ crew leads rather old- translations from languages other than English, or a school, analogue lives, we are following the advice of timely reflection on pandemics as depicted in the sci- a couple of kind readers to re-animate the Journal’s phi canon. Twitter account from its long cryogenic slumber. If you wish to support our authors by sharing (re- During the spring, we had received a record number tweeting?) their work, you may do so by following of submissions – a welcome development, which we, @sciphijournal (which we are told is not a hashtag, however, ascribe to the unfortunate circumstances of but an account handle, apparently). the global lockdown. Solitude is good for literature, it seems. ~ The rules of social distancing also meant that the crew availed themselves of the opportunity to spend more time with their families, while doing their day jobs (and reviewing submitted stories) confined to 3 Cube Kaolin Imago Fire Slowly they found each other; some madnesses were compatible, some were not. Extremes of violence were removed, the rest were studied from afar. And slowly, ever-more-slowly, they evolved. Technology was remembered, reinvented, re-imagined. Language was a game, never left to one set of rules for too long. They learned to walk through walls, and were never seen again except as ghosts--though it was rumoured that they stepped out as sooth-sayers to sundry wheres and whens. The planet continued to change No street led to just one other; no window faced and be changed by them--in time, it too began to another; no entrance was for just one house. Sewer fade, escaping both space and time. flowed through boudoir with an elegance that defied reason--but that was art in the hands of masters. ~ Cube, as it was prosaically called, was the result of studied generations, clones and imitators, working towards a harmonious cacophony of architecture. Out of the void of other beings, mankind creates its own others--and Cube was the ultimate inhuman thing, an entire planet manufactured to break down the mind and recreate it from environs that knew no boundary. The greatest living-art project of any time, Cube was populated slowly despite the near-fanaticism it inspired. Volunteers were seeded across the planet to build their own "worlds". Were allowed nothing that could contact Off-cube, simply given the means to support themselves, to provide for the world they inhabited. Were left to fall into madness and either come out the other side or die. Only then were more seeded: hundreds, thousands at a time, all segregated from each other but provided for. And again, madness ran its course. 4 The Real Story Jonathan Turner "When does Skynet come online?" Lisa asked. "August 4, 1997," said Allen, who can be relied on to know stuff like that. "Why is there no Star Trek in Star Trek?" I asked. "And the movie came out in . " That was the question that started it all. "1984." It wasn't meant to be profound. We were killing time "So only thirteen years. And it's not like the movie between--or instead of--classes, at the Science Fiction was obscure." Society. Forgive me if I don't name the university. "Ergo," I said, "in the future shown in the movie, the You'll understand later. movie itself either doesn't exist or isn't widely known. "Because it'd make the show really boring?" said Which means that it's not our future." Allen. "It'd be all, 'Mr. Spock, have the computer "I'm good with that," said Lisa. figure out which episode we're in and tell us how we fix this.'" And that should have been that. This conversation should have gone the way of the one where Allen and "Allen" isn't his real name, by the way. None of the I worked out what happens if you cast an invisibility names I'm going to use are real, not even "Jonathan spell on a campfire. (Invisible photons, in case you're Turner". You'll also notice that I'm not giving you wondering.) That is, we would have spread it around a much in the way of dates. bit, referenced the punch lines periodically, and "Sure," I said. "That's the real reason. But what's the otherwise gotten on with our lives. in-universe reason? I mean, Trek is supposed to be This one recurred every so often, though, just because the future, right? The actual future of our actual of the calendar. Some date would go by, and someone world. Which includes a TV series named Star Trek." (usually Allen again) would point out that according "It's not the actual world," Lisa objected--Lisa tends to book/movie/TV show X that was the date when to get detail-oriented. "No Eugenics Wars." event Y happened. And we'd agree that they really We had a lot of conversations like this in the SFS. We should have checked the film archives, or whatever, called it "The Room That Time Forgot." It was a so they wouldn't have been surprised. musty little windowless space in the basement of Wedderburn Hall with a mangy collection of fourth- hand furniture and a carpet that looked like it had been dipped in goat bile. We loved it. "No, but think about it," said Sean. "It's not just Trek, it's everything. Like, in The Terminator future, why doesn't somebody on the Skynet project say something like, 'Hey, guys? Remember that movie? Should we maybe not do this?'" 5 Eventually we all graduated. I went into quantum "You're a mean one, Mister Grinch." Sean made a sad physics. Lisa and Allen got married; she became a face at the game board. "I don't like this future." high-powered government lawyer, Allen an AI The conversation switched to pure game-speak for a researcher. Sean was the one who travelled furthest, as while while we blew up each other's spaceships. It a globe-trotting fast-track executive for an popped up again when we broke for pizza, though. international e-commerce company. But we never lost touch. It's one of those groups where it doesn't matter "We could still get The Martian," Sean said hopefully. how long you've been away--you walk into the room, "Only if we increase Martian air pressure enough to and it's like you never left.. blow over a lander," Allen objected. So it's maybe not surprising that "the Trek Paradox" "If your name is Mark Watney, do not leave the kept cropping up. I remember one conversation in lander!" said Lisa. particular. Sean had flown in from Japan, and we had "NASA should have a checklist on their job gotten together for a weekend of board games and applications," I said. "Is your name (a) Mark Watney, catching up. (b) David Bowman . ." "So it looks like Invasion: Earthlight isn't going to "(c) Ellen Ripley," added Lisa, our resident Alien happen," Allen said, moving a tiny spaceship. (Yes, expert (she also does Godzilla). that's a made-up title. I told you, I'm being coy about details.) "What they ought to do is take all their actual astronauts and write disaster stories about them, so "Umm .
Recommended publications

  • The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First Century American Fiction Edited by Joshua Miller Frontmatter More Information

    Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-83827-6 — The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First Century American Fiction Edited by Joshua Miller Frontmatter More Information -- Reading lists, course syllabi, and prizes include the phrase “twenty-first-century American literature,” but no critical consensus exists regarding when the period began, which works typify it, how to conceptualize its aesthetic priorities, and where its geographical boundaries lie. Considerable criticism has been published on this extraordinary era, but little programmatic analysis has assessed comprehensively the literary and critical/theoretical output to help readers navigate the labyrinth of critical pathways. In addition to ensuring broad coverage of many essential texts, The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First- Century American Fiction offers state-of-the-field analyses of contemporary narrative studies that set the terms of current and future research and teaching. Individual chapters illuminate critical engagements with emergent genres and concepts, including flash fiction, speculative fiction, digital fiction, alternative temporalities, Afro-Futurism, ecocriticism, transgender/queer studies, anti- carceral fiction, precarity, and post-9/11 fiction. . is Associate Professor of English at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Accented America: The Cultural Politics of Multilingual Modernism (2011), editor of The Cambridge Companion to the American Modernist Novel (2015), and coeditor of Languages of Modern Jewish Cultures: Comparative Perspectives (2016). © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-83827-6 — The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First Century American Fiction Edited by Joshua Miller Frontmatter More Information THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO TWENTY-FIRST- CENTURY AMERICAN FICTION EDITED BY JOSHUA L.
  • The Mammy, the Breeder and the Race Woman: Storytelling As Subversion in Selected Novels by Contemporary Black Women Writers

    The Mammy, the Breeder and the Race Woman: Storytelling As Subversion in Selected Novels by Contemporary Black Women Writers

    THE MAMMY, THE BREEDER AND THE RACE WOMAN: STORYTELLING AS SUBVERSION IN SELECTED NOVELS BY CONTEMPORARY BLACK WOMEN WRITERS By OlaOmi M. Amoloku A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English Middle Tennessee State University May 2019 Thesis Committee: Dr. Laura Dubek, Thesis Director Dr. Elyce Helford, Reader DEDICATION To LaLeta, Nannie M., and Westel For My Voice and The Will to Speak ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Sincerest appreciation to my director Dr. Laura Dubek for taking this journey with me and gifting me with the mantra “She persisted.” iii ABSTRACT Audre Lorde categorized her semi-autobiographical novel Zami: A New Spelling of My Name , published in 1982, as biomythography. In doing so, Lorde suggested a new genre of writing that challenges the boundaries of existing genres, particularly for Black women writers. Lorde’s unique method of storytelling utilizes elements of traditional biography as well as the history of myth, this combination constituting a “new spelling” of her name. Since 1982, the term biomythography has become a sort of umbrella for many types of feminist (auto)biographical writing. With close readings of three novels by contemporary black women writers—Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day , Octavia Butler’s Dawn , and Nnedi Okorafor’s The Book of Phoenix —I argue that work currently considered in the genre of Afrofuturism should instead be read as biomythography. Naylor, Butler, and Okorafor all do the work of biomythography by foregrounding, in fiction, the rich inner lives of Black women in a way that directly challenges two dominant myths of Black womanhood—the mammy and the breeder—and, in Okorafor’s case, reclaims and rewrites the narrative of the Race Woman.
  • Blackgirlmagic and the Black Ratchet Imagination

    Blackgirlmagic and the Black Ratchet Imagination

    Journal of Language and Literacy Education Vol. 15 Issue 1—Spring 2019 Breaking Binaries: #BlackGirlMagic and the Black Ratchet Imagination S.R. Toliver Abstract: CaShawn Thompson’s hashtag, #BlackGirlMagic, has transformed into a movement over the past five years. The hashtag focuses on celebrating the beauty,& influence, and strength of Black women and girls. However, Thompson’s term sits in a space of tension, where contradictory interpretations create boundaries around what Black girl celebration means as well as who gets to celebrate Black girl magic, specifically when it comes to girls without a celebrity status and girls who are considered hood or ratchet. In this paper, the author contends that the tension between respectability and ratchetness must be further explored, as it is an essential component in discussions of Black girl identities. To do this, the Afrofuturist young adult literature of Nnedi Okorafor is analyzed using a conceptual framework that highlights the Black Ratchet Imagination and its aversion to respectability politics and the ways in which Afrofuturism challenges notions of respectability in terms of traditional Black literary cultural production. Findings suggest that, although each character, like real Black girls, exhibits traits of respectability, they also depict traits of ratchetness. Thus, the author calls for all literacy stakeholders to dissolve preconceived binaries and conceptualize ratchetness as another celebratory space of agency and Black Girl Magic. Keywords: #BlackGirlMagic, Black Ratchet Imagination, Afrofuturism, Critical Content Analysis, Black Girls S.R. Toliver is pursuing a Ph.D. in language and literacy education at The University of Georgia. Her research centers representations of and responses to people of color in speculative fiction and popular culture texts, and she is also interested in critical literacy, secondary education, Afrofuturism, social justice, and Black girl literacies.
  • ENGLISH Newsletter

    ENGLISH Newsletter

    IN THIS ISSUE: Note From the Chair ......................................................... 2 Faculty News ..................................................................... 3 Featured Faculty ............................................................... 4 Undergraduate Featured Student ................................... 4 Undergraduate Student News ......................................... 5 MA in Innovative Writing Program .................................. 6 Graduate Student News ................................................... 7 Featured Alumnus & Alumni News ................................. 8 Alumni News .............................................................9 & 10 Poetry Collection, Emeriti Faculty News & In Memoriam ..................................................................11 SPRING 2014 DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH NEWSLETTER Department of English DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH www.facebook.com/UBEnglish @UB_English www.english.buffalo.edu NOTE FROM THE CHAIR Dear Friends, NEW BOOKS / AWARDS Reading through the spring newsletter, you’ll see that this has been an impressive year Carine Mardorossian has been promoted to Full for the English Department. Our faculty Professor. Her new book, Framing the Rape Victim: continues to publish cutting-edge scholarship Gender and Agency Reconsidered, is forthcoming and win prestigious fellowships. Our graduate from Rutgers University Press. students are publishing; winning fellowships, post-docs, and awards; and landing good jobs; and our majors continue to flourish. This year, the

  • The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature Edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn Frontmatter More Information

    Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-42959-7 - The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature Edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn Frontmatter More information the cambridge companion to fantasy literature Fantasy is a creation of the Enlightenment, and the recognition that excitement and wonder can be found in imagining impossible things. From the ghost stories of the Gothic to the zombies and vampires of twenty-first-century popular lit- erature, from Mrs Radcliffe to Ms Rowling, the fantastic has been popular with readers. Since Tolkien and his many imitators, however, it has become a major publishing phenomenon. In this volume, critics and authors of fantasy look at its history since the Enlightenment, introduce readers to some of the different codes for the reading and understanding of fantasy, and exam- ine some of the many varieties and subgenres of fantasy; from magical realism at the more literary end of the genre, to paranormal romance at the more pop- ular end. The book is edited by the same pair who produced The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (winner of a Hugo Award in 2005). A complete list of books in the series is at the back of the book © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-42959-7 - The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature Edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn Frontmatter More information © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-42959-7 - The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy
  • Women of Color in Speculative Fiction: an Annotated Bibliography of Authors Rebecca M

    Women of Color in Speculative Fiction: an Annotated Bibliography of Authors Rebecca M

    Western Washington University Western CEDAR A Collection of Open Access Books and Books and Monographs Monographs 10-2016 Women of Color in Speculative Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography of Authors Rebecca M. Marrall Western Washington University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://cedar.wwu.edu/cedarbooks Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Library and Information Science Commons, and the Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons Recommended Citation Marrall, Rebecca M., "Women of Color in Speculative Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography of Authors" (2016). A Collection of Open Access Books and Monographs. 8. https://cedar.wwu.edu/cedarbooks/8 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Books and Monographs at Western CEDAR. It has been accepted for inclusion in A Collection of Open Access Books and Monographs by an authorized administrator of Western CEDAR. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Women of Color in Speculative Fiction An Annotated Bibliography of Authors Rebecca M. Marrall Author: Marrall, R. M. Annotated Bibliography Last Updated: Sept. 22, 2016 Women of Color in Speculative Fiction An Annotated Bibliography of Authors Table of Contents Authors, Themes, and Works ................................................................................................. 3 Renee Ahdieh ....................................................................................................................................
  • Readercon 28 Program Guide

    Readercon 28 Program Guide

    POLICIES AND PROGRAM SCHEDULE Policies � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 40 At the Con � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 44 Readercon 28 program Thursday � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 46 Friday � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 48 Saturday � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 56 Sunday � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 61 Readercon 28 committee and staff � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 65 Program participant bio-bibliographies � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 67 Bookshop dealers � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 100 Art © Andrew King 40 POLICIES Readercon needs volunteer help this weekend 8 hours earns a free membership for Readercon 29 in 2018! You can even earn credit for watching programming� Stop by the Info Desk to find out how. POLICIES Cell phones must be set to silent or vibrate mode in panel discussion rooms. No smoking in programming areas or the Bookshop, by state law and hotel policy� Only service animals in convention areas. No weapons in convention areas. Young children who are always with an adult are admitted free; others need a membership. See “Children Attending Readercon” on page 43 for more information� Any disruptive or inappropriate behavior may lead to being asked
  • DA 1 Eva Okonofua 0608434

    DA 1 Eva Okonofua 0608434

    DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit „Postkoloniale Speculative Fiction und Afrika. Intersektionen und Interaktionen bei Nnedi Okorafor“ Verfasserin Eva-Maria Okonofua angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.phil.) Wien, 2013 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 390 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Diplomstudium Afrikanistik Betreuer: emer.o.Prof. Dr. Norbert Cyffer Danksagung Ich möchte mich an dieser Stelle bei allen bedanken, die mich während der Anfertigung dieser Diplomarbeit unterstützt und motiviert haben. Ganz besonders gilt dieser Dank emer.o.Prof. Dr. Norbert Cyffer und Dr. Anni Gottschlig-Ogidan, die meine Arbeit und somit auch mich betreut haben. Vielen Dank für die Geduld und Motivation. Ein herzli- cher Dank gilt meinen Freundinnen und Freunden, meinem Mann, meinem Vater und meinen Geschwistern, die mir immer zuversichtlich zur Seite gestanden sind und mich unterstützt und angespornt haben. Inhaltsverzeichnis 2 Inhaltsverzeichnis Inhaltsverzeichnis ........................................................................................................... 2 1 Einleitung ............................................................................................................. 4 2 Was ist Speculative Fiction? ............................................................................. 10 2.1 Science Fiction .................................................................................................... 13 2.2 Fantasy ................................................................................................................
  • Fall 2014 the English Major Club

    Fall 2014 the English Major Club

    Whole English Catalog Fall 2014 The English Major Club Do you want to meet more students in the department? Do you wish you had friends to go to for help on assignments? Do you enjoy just having fun? The English Club is looking for members. It is a club for majors, minors, and anyone who simply enjoys anything written. If you've been looking for someone to help proof your assignments, talk about books, check out Buffalo's literary scene, and simply relax and have fun with, then the English Club is for you.! E-mail [email protected] for more information. Visit us on the web at: http://ubenglishstudentassociation.wordpress.com/ Look for us on Facebook under UB English SA. Did you know… Employers in many diverse fields - including business, law, government, research, education, publishing, human services, public relations, culture/entertainment, and journalism - LOVE to hire English majors because of their ability to read and write effectively and articulately excellent verbal communication and listening skills capacity to think critically and creatively comprehensive knowledge of grammar and vocabulary ability to weigh values and present persuasive arguments PLUS, knowledge about literature allows for intelligent conversation at work, dinner, meetings and functions. Go English Majors! Visit Career Services to look at potential career paths and to help plan your future! UB Career Services is the place on campus to help you explore how your English major connects to various career paths. Meeting with a career counselor allows you to explore your interests and career options while helping you take the necessary steps to reach your goal.
  • J1zfo.Ebook] Lagoon Pdf Free

    J1zfo.Ebook] Lagoon Pdf Free

    j1Zfo [E-BOOK] Lagoon Online [j1Zfo.ebook] Lagoon Pdf Free Nnedi Okorafor *Download PDF | ePub | DOC | audiobook | ebooks Download Now Free Download Here Download eBook #67210 in Books Nnedi Okorafor 2016-02-02 2016-02-02Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.25 x .70 x 5.50l, .0 #File Name: 1481440888320 pagesLagoon | File size: 43.Mb Nnedi Okorafor : Lagoon before purchasing it in order to gage whether or not it would be worth my time, and all praised Lagoon: 8 of 8 people found the following review helpful. GREAT FIRST CONTACT STORYBy shortstack1981I really loved this book. I had so much fun reading it and it made me smile.I don't quite know how to describe it other than First Contact. But instead of the aliens landing on the White House lawn (because that trope is so overdone) or blowing up New York City (been there, done that) or involving the US Air Force beneath Cheyanne Mountain, the aliens land offshore of Lagos, Nigeria, the biggest city in that country and one of the biggest in the entire world.And that is what makes this book so great.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. The best sci-fi stories use some fantastical element or technological development ...By A. BiddlerThe best sci-fi stories use some fantastical element or technological development to expose something about the human condition. Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon is no exception. From the arrival of aliens in a place an English speaking audience would not normally expect to find them (Lagos, Nigeria) to the tensions between long-held cultural moors, religious fervor, and scientific investigation.The story follows a marine biologist, a DJ, and a soldier; who are the first to witness the arrival.