Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2021 ISSN 2472-0837 Sponsored by the 1 Museum of Science Fiction Washington, DC JOURNAL OF SCIENCE FICTION Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2021 ISSN 2472-0837 MOSF Journal of Science Fiction Volume 4, Number 2 February 8 2021 ISSN 2474-0837 Managing Editor: Aisha Matthews, M.A. Peer Review Coordinator: Barbara Jasny, Ph.D. Guest Editors: Ibtisam Abujad & Ian Campbell, Ph.D. Editors: Anthony Dwayne Boynton, M.A.; Benet Pera, Ph.D; Doug Dluzen, Ph.D.; & Melanie Marotta, Ph.D. Editorial Board: Nancy Kress, M.A., M.S.; Charles E. Gannon, Ph.D.; Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, Ph.D.; Terence McSweeney, Ph.D.; & Marleen S. Barr, Ph.D. Cover Art: Belonging by Laila Amin Reflections: Science Fiction, Rational Enchantment, and Arabic Literature By Aya Labanieh A Journey of Erasing the Self By Meltam Safak Articles: Herzl, Nakba, and Nationalist Escapism in Israeli and Palestinian Science Fiction By Timothy Quevillion, Ph.D. Islands, Rooms, and Queues: Three Tropes in Arabic Science Fiction By Wessam Elmeligi, Ph.D Arab SF Film and TV in the Twentieth Century By Diana Kasem “Cached memories”: Spatiotemporal (Dis)ruptures and Postmemorial Absence in Palestine +100 By Laila AlAmmar War of the Worlds: Geologic Consciousness in Reza Negarestani’s Cyclonopedia By Paul Piatkowski, Ph.D. Book Reviews: Determann, J.M. (2020), Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life: The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World By Joan Grandjean 2 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE FICTION Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2021 ISSN 2472-0837 Sponsored by the Museum of Science Fiction & hosted by the University of Maryland Libraries. Museum of Science Fiction University of Maryland Libraries PO Box 88 7649 Library Lane Alexandria, VA 22313 College Park, MD 20742 3 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE FICTION Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2021 ISSN 2472-0837 Open Access Policy This journal provides immediate open access to its content in keeping with the principle that mak- ing research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. 4 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE FICTION Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2021 ISSN 2472-0837 Table of Contents Masthead…………………………………………………………………….………….......................................................................................2 Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………………………..……...........................................................5 Cover Art by Liala Amin....………………………………………………………………………………………..…….............................................................6 Letter from the Editors by Ibtisam Abujad & Ian Campbell, Ph.D. ……………………………………………………………….…………...................................7 Reflective Essays: Science Fiction, Rational Enchantment, and Arabic Literature by Aya Labanieh...............…………………………………………………………………….…………...........................................................8 A Journey of Erasing the Self by Meltam Şafak....……………………………………………………………………………….......................................................................13 Articles: Herzl, Nakba, and Nationalist Escapism in Israeli and Palestinian Science Fiction by Timothy Quevillion, Ph.D. .............................................................................................................................................16 Islands, Rooms, and Queues: Three Tropes in Arabic Science Fiction By Wessam Elmeligi, Ph.D. ................................................................................................................................................36 Arab SF Film and TV in the Twentieth Century by Diana Kasem ...…………………………………………………………………….………….....................................................................50 “Cached memories”: Spatiotemporal (Dis)ruptures and Postmemorial Absence in Palestine +100 by Laila AlAmmar .…………………………...................................................................................................................................65 War of the Worlds: Geologic Consciousness in Reza Negarestani’s Cyclonopedia By Paul Piatkowski, Ph.D. ...................................................................................................................................................79 Books in Review: by Joan Grandjean ...............................................................................................................................................................95 About the Contributors.......................................................................................................................................................98 5 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE FICTION Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2021 ISSN 2472-0837 Cover Art Cover Art: Belonging by Liala Amin 6 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE FICTION Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2021 ISSN 2472-0837 Letter from the Editors The relative ease of publishing in the Internet age These stories and so many others depict societies that is just one of many factors that has enabled SF to pique our interest both because they’re well-written take off in the developing world. The comparative and internally consistent, but furthermore, because they democratization of publishing only raises the supply. reflect on our own political systems. For the most part, The Internet has also driven up demand for SF in the however, people in developed nations have strong legal developing world, and not only because residents of protections for direct reflections upon and critiques of regions hitherto less than well-known for SF production their political systems. People in the developing world are able to access literature and film, whether carefully often do not have these protections—and in the case of translated, inconsistently dubbed, or somewhere in the Arabic-speaking world, not only is their freedom of between. While the original Star Wars trilogy is at least speech not protected, but there are ruinous, painful, or partially responsible for the blossoming of SF across sometimes even fatal consequences for direct critiques. the developing world, demand for works of local origin SF in the Arabic-speaking world, then, in part grows is also driven by political conditions—and with respect steadily more popular precisely because estrangement to the Arabic-speaking world, this continues to be the enables critique to have plausible deniability. Write a case. social-realist novel with an incompetent, violent buffoon A dominant theory of how SF works is Darko Suvin’s as dictatorial president, and the security forces might notion of cognitive estrangement, where “cognitive” come to your door; write an SF novel about an alien refers to the scientific plausibility of the outlandish society run by those same buffoons, and it becomes elements of the story: usually, the question is whether more difficult for the regime to accuse you of sedition those elements are plausible within the world depicted without looking like fools. Modern Arabic literary fiction in the text or film, rather than whether they meet has a long tradition of this sort of estranged critique, so rigorous scientific standards in the real world. Faster- using the tropes of SF to accomplish their goals was an than-light travel, for example, is pure fantasy as far as easy jump for Arabic-speaking writers. our current understanding of physics is concerned, but This sort of serious political critique is not the only in SF, it’s generally assumed that the problem has been reason SF has grown in popularity in the Arabic- solved, so we can call it “cognitive.” The estrangement speaking world. A thousand years ago, scientific and originally derives from avant-garde theatre, notably that technological development was centered in the Arabic- of Brecht: its effect is to defamiliarize the familiar—to speaking world, whereas now, new developments are hold up to society a distorting mirror so that we might absorbed (or imposed) from without. This produces all see how very strange are the beliefs we consider manner of complex emotions; SF literature is one way customary. For example, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left to address these. Still more importantly, genre fiction Hand of Darkness depicts a planet where people are has grown increasingly respectable in Arabic literature neuters 27 days per month and then become male or in recent decades: some Arabic SF is just… fun. In this female the other three days, not only because it makes issue of the journal, we present to you a number of for a smashing story, but also in order to hold up that different perspectives on SF from the Arabic-speaking distorting mirror to the extent that people here on Earth and greater Muslim worlds: we hope that these articles associate gender with biological sex. provide you information on the genre and inspire you to Estrangement can be a means of political as well as take advantage of some of the increasingly numerous social critique. This is not unknown in Anglo-American titles available in translation. SF: consider the long tradition of alternative political futures, from the militaristic neo-monarchy of David - Ian Campbell & Ibtisam Abujad Weber’s Honor Harrington series to the post-scarcity Guest Editors, MOSF Journal of Science Fiction communo-hedonism of Iain M. Banks Culture novels. 7 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE FICTION Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2021 ISSN 2472-0837 Reflections Science Fiction, Rational Enchantment, and Arabic Literature Aya Labanieh, Columbia University The Arab world is known for pioneering a plethora questions, a wealth of Arabic science fiction texts ex- of literary genres and forms: one reflexively imagines plicitly or implicitly grapple with