Gender Identity In Feminist Science Fiction English Literature Essay

wind personal identity In feminist Science manufacturing English literary productions EssayBy conducting this question I discovered to what extent the theme had been previously covered and what input I could put into the area without retell others. I found that Carter and Russ endure rarely, if at all, been studied solely on board each other even though both their spiels ca-ca been identified as feminist acquisition fable. I therefore concupiscence to explore how sexual activity identity is dealt with in their works and the intention of utilise the science manufacturing genre to do so.Baccolini makes the point that contemporary sci-fi texts written by women increasingly foreground the interaction of sexual urge and genre. In particular, the quizzical of generic conventions by feminist sci-fi writers appears to have contributed to the creation of a bare-assed genre, such as the decisive dystopia or works of sci-fi that contain both utopian and dystopian elements with the aim of deconstructing tradition and reconstructing alternatives.Hollinger draws similarities betwixt feminist hypothesis and queer theory in a bid to explore how the variable construction of sexual activity identity is represented in science simile by women writers. She states the importance of relating theory to fictions as they function to suggest schooling about each other and de-familiarise each other. She reaffirms that science fiction is a useful discourse within which theoretical concepts on the issues of gender and sex activity can be represented.Cortiel discusses how Russs work transforms genre and plot conventions and disrupts the naturalised alliance of sex, gender, and sexuality. She critically interprets Russs earlier short fiction and how they relate to her later explicitly feminist works. Although Cortiels main digest is on the earlier short stories of Russ, she in some(prenominal) case makes engagementing critiques on gender and sexuality in Rus ss novels, and to my particular interest The young-bearing(prenominal) Man.3. In her book Gender Trouble Feminism and the subversive activity of Identity, Judith Butler argues that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, intrinsic nonion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender. She questions the category fair sex who does it take on, and who decides who it includes? She withal questions the terms masculine and feminine, determining that they are not biologically fixed but ethnically presupposed. Butler also explores the concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality.4. In To spell like a Woman, Joanna Russ sets a modular of clear, intelligent, and relentless feminist criticism. This collection of her essays includes topics relevant to my research topic such as the aesthetic of science fiction and feminist utopian novels.In her essay What Can a Heroine Do? Or Why Women pitch Write, Russ discusses stories or m yths whose genres employ plots that are not limited to one sex. She name calling science fiction as one such genre that in general involves a plot which explores a new world, human intelligence, and human adaptability. such(prenominal) plots do not generally involve our culturally contrived gender roles and therefore allow writers to create fascinating point of references that deal with current experiences and not inherited literary myths.In the chapter Recent Feminist Utopias, examples from various texts, including The Female Man, are used to explore the features of feminist utopian fiction. A especially interesting point is made as regards female pubescence in feminist utopias, where Russ states that feminist utopias offer an alternative model of female puberty that allows the girl to move into a full and free adulthood.5. While acknowledging the mundanity and pertinence of Butlers theories on the performativity of gender identity, Trevennas article, entitled Gender as surger y Questioning the Butlerification of Angela Carters fabrication, argues that there are significant differences between Butlers presentation of gender acquisition and that presented in Carters fiction.Highlighting how dominant theoretical trends can often problematically displace other relevant climbes, this article suggests that Carters presentation of gender acquisition is more in accordance with that promoted by Simone de Beauvoir in The warrant Sex rather than the currently more fashionable theories of Judith Butler. It further suggests that Carters work also moves beyond the feminism of de Beauvoir and invites a more contemporary critical debate by dint of its presentation of the pre-gendered subject as unstable and fragmented.6. In the chapter Ursula Le Guins The Left Hand of Darkness Androgyny and the Feminist Utopia from Women and Utopia, Jewell Parker Rhodes discusses the purpose of androgyny in the works of feminist writers. Although Ursula Le Guin sees androgyny as a heuristic for determining essential humanity without lifelong cultural conditioning of gender roles, Parker Rhodes argues that that the androgyne is an archetype that claims a woman to be deficient and in need of maleness. I feel this is an interesting purpose which can be further explored in the texts, especially in Russs character Joanna in The Female Man.The majority of my research on feminist science fiction explores the questioning of dominant cultural definitions of difference and identity through the works of writers such as Octavia Butler, Vonda McIntyre, Suzy McKee Charnas, Pamela Sargent, and Margaret Atwood. For this project I propose to check the elements of feminist science fiction through Carter and Russ, in particular The ire of impertinently Eve and The Female Man. Although Russ is regularly discussed within the genre, her work doesnt expect to be studied alongside Carters. I plan to discuss comparisons and differences between how these two science fiction novel s deal with gender identity. Furthermore, I call to relate notions of gender by theorists such as Butler and de Beauvior to the approach of both writers to gender identity.Section ThreeIntroductionThe introduction shall adumbrate the aim of my study and include brief summaries of the chapters that follow.Chapter 1The first chapter shall include different criticisms and theories on feminist science fiction and gender that I have found through my research. This section shall investigate what devices the science fiction genre has that attract feminist writers and particularly how they use utopian and dystopian elements to deconstruct tradition and reconstruct alternative societies. I will also include a range of examples from the works of feminist science fiction writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Marge Piercy, Margaret Atwood, and Octavia Butler.Chapter 2This chapter will focus on the settings of the chosen works and examine how gender is treated by the different societies.Chapter 3 This chapter shall deal with how both Carter and Russ play with gender identities in the individual characters of their works. Here their views on the relationship between biological sex and gender identity can be compared to the gender theories of Butler and de Beauvoir. finisThe conclusion shall summarise the points made in the previous chapters and highlight any main conflicts or similarities I discover.Section 4In conclusion, having researched my gist bibliography, I plan to continue my research of gender identity in feminist science fiction with particular focus on alternative criticisms of The Passion of New Eve and The Female Man. Once I have done this I shall have a greater insight into the research and criticism that has already been done in the area and therefore be in a better position fine tune the points which I plan to make on this topic.Revised Core BibliographyBarr, Marleen S.Alien to Femininity uncollectible Fiction and Feminist Theory. New York Greenwood, 1987. Print.Barr, Marleen S.Future Females A unfavourable Anthology. wheel Green, OH Bowling Green State University Popular, 1981. Print.Butler, Judith.Gender Trouble Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York Routledge, 1990. Print.Russ, Joanna.To Write like a Woman Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction. Bloomington inch UP, 1995. Print.Trevenna, Joanne. Gender as Performance Questioning the Butlerification of Angela Carters Fiction.Journal of Gender Studies11.3 (2002) 267-76. Print.Extended bibliographyAnnas, Pamela J. New Worlds, New Words Androgyny in Feminist Science Fiction.Science Fiction Studies5.2 (1978) 143-56.JSTOR. Web. Apr. 2011.Ayres, Susan. The Straight Mind in Russs The Female ManScience Fiction Studies22.1 (1995) 22-34.JSTOR. Web. Apr. 2011.Barr, Marleen S.Lost in blank Probing Feminist Science Fiction and beyond. Chapel Hill, NC University of North Carolina, 1993. Print.DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. The Feminist Apologues of Lessing, Piercy, and Russ.Frontiers A Jo urnal of Women Studies4.1 (1979) 1-8.JSTOR. Web. Apr. 2011.Gamble, Sarah.Angela Carter Writing from the Front Line.Edinburgh Edinburgh UP, 1997. Print.Gardiner, Judith Kegan. On Female Identity and Writing by Women.Critical Inquiry8.2 (1981) 347-61.JSTOR. Web. Apr. 2011.Kerchy, Anna.Body Texts in the Novels of Angela Carter Writing from a Corporeagraphic Point of View. Lewiston, NY Edwin Mellen, 2008. Print.Martins, Susana S. rewrite the Future in The Female ManScience Fiction Studies32.3 (2005) 405-22.JSTOR. Web. Apr. 2011.Merrick, Helen. Fantastic Dialogues Critical Stories near Feminism and Science Fiction.Speaking Science Fiction Dialogue and Interpretation. By Andy sawyer and David Seed. Liverpool Liverpool U.P., 2000. 52-68. Print.Parker Rhodes, Jewell. Androgyny and the Feminist Utopia.Women and Utopia Critical Interpretations. By Marleen S. Barr and Nicholas D. Smith. Lanham, MD University of America, 1983. 108-20. Print.Rubinson, Gregory J. On the bound of Elsewhere An gela Carters Moral Pornography and the Critique of Gender Archetypes.Womens Studies29.6 (2000) 717-40.Informaworld. Web.Russ, Joanna. Women and SF Three Letters.Science Fiction Studies7.2 (1980) 232-36.JSTOR. SF-TH Inc. Web. Apr. 2011. .Russo, Mary J.The Female Grotesque Risk, Excess, and Modernity. New York Routledge, 1995. Print.Sage, Lorna.Flesh and the Mirror Essays on the fraud of Angela Carter. London Virago, 1995. Print.Spencer, Kathleen L. Rescuing the Female Child The Fiction of Joanna Russ.Science Fiction Studies17.2 (1990) 167-87.JSTOR. Web. Apr. 2011.Wyatt, Jean. The Violence of Gendering castration Images in Angela Carters The Magic Toyshop, The Passion of New Eve and Peter and The Wolf..Angela Carter contemporary Critical Essays. By Alison Easton. Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. 58-84. Print.FYP Progress Report