Ecofeminist Science Fiction: International Perspectives on Gender, Ecology, and Literature

摘要

As Darko Suvin states, science fiction offers social critique through cognitive estrangement and seeks alternatives for a better future. The ecofeminist dimension is embedded in science fiction. However, the extant scholarship hasn’t given due attention to the intertwined relationship between sci-fi and ecological feminism. The critical anthology Ecofeminist Science Fiction: International Perspectives on Gender, Ecology, and Literature (2021), edited by Douglas A. Vakoch, is a timely work filling the lacuna and broadening the field of environmental literature studies. The contributors offer intriguing insights into a variety of sci-fi texts through an ecofeminist lens. The twin issues of violence against women and environmental degradation are addressed in this collection.The fourteen essays in this collection are grouped into four sections according to different themes. The first section, “Female Bodies: Plants and Animals, Cyborgs and Robots,” includes four essays that focus on scrutinizing the oppression of women, plants, animals, cyborgs, and robots, driven by patriarchal authority and ideologies. Melissa Etzler opens this section with an astute analysis of the German sci-fi novel Alraune (1911). She points out that this novel not only reflects the prevalent misogyny in Germany during the early twentieth century, but also offers an ecofeminist utopian alternative by depicting the heroine Alraune as “a quintessential example of a proto-ecofeminist” (22). Lesley Kordecki analyzes Mary Doria Russell’s novel The Sparrow (1996) via the lens of critical animal studies and demonstrates that it profoundly explores the essence of the human animal as well as the power and limits of our often misunderstood conceptions of gender. Imelda Martín Junquera focuses on the HBO series Westworld (2016–2022) and the Mexican movie Sleep Dealer (2008). She illuminates how unrestricted technology results in the exploitation of artificial women. Katja Plemenitaš ends this section with an ecofeminist reading of the satiric dystopian film The Stepford Wives (1975). She argues that the suburban area of Stepford is not an idyllic place for women but an artificial environment controlled by men, and “the manipulation of women runs parallel to the domination of their living spaces” (57).The second section, “Queer Ecologies,” focuses on examining how some sci-fi texts destabilize heteronormativity and critique human exceptionalism and anthropocentrism. Asli Değirmenci Altin investigates the anthropocentric and androcentric ideologies in Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007) and posits that the characters Billie and Spike in this novel are portrayed as “posthuman, queer, and anti-anthropocentric subjects that go beyond real and imagined boundaries of oppressive ideologies” (73). Sarah Bezan provides a thorough and thought-provoking exploration of queering aqueous natures and biotechnological futures in Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl (2002) by drawing on new materialist and feminist approaches. She dwells on “how the novel’s fishy labors reveal the creative potential of queer women’s writing to respond to an uncertain future of biotechnological innovation and intervention” (76). Meghna Mudaliar analyzes two major queer characters, Bill Potts and Charlie Bradbury, in the television series Doctor Who (2005–) and Supernatural (2005–2020), respectively. She argues that “characters such as Bill and Charlie serve to remind us of humanistic discourses that continue to engage with and include representations of queer identity in the context of understanding what it means to be human” (97). She concludes that ecofeminist science fiction is still a powerful challenger in the contexts of literature and culture that addresses and interrogates the developing ideas of hybrid and heterogeneous forms of identity.The third section, “War and Ecoterrorism,” tries to address the problem of ecoterrorism. It begins with Patrick D. Murphy’s essay on Karen Traviss’s The Wess’ha