The Legacies of Ursula K. Le Guin: Science, Fiction, Ethics (Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture)

This excellent volume is devoted to Le Guin's ongoing critical reception. It presents a fine mix of international contributors that culminates in a masterful article from Isabelle Stengers. Here Stengers does for Le Guin what she famously did for the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead: she shows how to 'think with' this author, how to 'think in SF mode' while engaging the intellectual investments that animate Le Guin's fiction. The other authors in the volume rise to the occasion of the brilliance that concludes it." --Bruce Clarke, Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor of Literature and Science, Department of English, Texas Tech University The Legacies of Ursula K. Le Guin explores how Le Guin's fiction and essays have built a speculative ethical practice engaging indigenous knowledge and feminism, while crafting utopias in which human and other-than-human life forms enter into new relations. Her work also delineates new ways of making sense of the "science" of science fiction. The authors of this collection provide up-to-date discussions of well-known works as well as more experimental writings. Written in an accessible style, Legacies will appeal to any readers interested in literature, science fiction and fantasy, as well as specialists of science and technology studies, philosophy of science, ethics, gender studies, indigenous studies and posthumanism. Christopher L. Robinson is Assistant Professor of English at the École Polytechnique, IP-Paris, France. After completing his dissertation on Ursula K. Le Guin, he went on to publish numerous articles in gender and genre studies. His current research focuses on the intersections of literature, art and the sciences. Sarah Bouttier is Assistant Professor of English at Ecole Polytechnique, IP-Paris, France. She has widely published on the nonhuman/posthuman in literature, ecopoetics, modernist literature and contemporary poetry. Pierre-Louis Patoine is Assistant Professor of American literature at Sorbonne Nouvelle University, France. He is co-director of the Science/Literature research group (litorg.hypotheses.org) and co-editor of the journal epistemocritique.org. He has published a monograph on the role of the empathic, physiological body in the experience of reading (Corps/texte 2015). This excellent volume is devoted to Le Guin's ongoing critical reception. It presents a fine mix of international contributors that culminates in a masterful article from Isabelle Stengers. Here Stengers does for Le Guin what she famously did for the British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead: she shows how to 'think with' this author, how to 'think in SF mode' while engaging the intellectual investments that animate Le Guin's fiction. The other authors in the volume rise to the occasion of the brilliance that concludes it." --Bruce Clarke, Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor of Literature and Science, Department of English, Texas Tech University The Legacies of Ursula K. Le Guin explores how Le Guin's fiction and essays have built a speculative ethical practice engaging indigenous knowledge and feminism, while crafting utopias in which human and other-than-human life forms enter into new relations. Her work also delineates new ways of making sense of the "science" of science fiction. The authors of this collection provide up-to-date discussions of well-known works as well as more experimental writings. Written in an accessible style, Legacies will appeal to any readers interested in literature, science fiction and fantasy, as well as specialists of science and technology studies, philosophy of science, ethics, gender studies, indigenous studies and posthumanism. Christopher L. Robinson is Assistant Professor of English at the École Polytechnique, IP-Paris, France. After completing his dissertation on Ursula K. Le Guin, he went on to publish numerous articles in gender and genre studies. His current research focuses on the intersections of literature, art and the sciences. Sarah Bouttier is Assistant Professor of English at Ecole Polytechnique, IP-Paris, France. She has widely published on the nonhuman/posthuman in literature, ecopoetics, modernist literature and contemporary poetry. Pierre-Louis Patoine is Assistant Professor of American literature at Sorbonne Nouvelle University, France. He is co-director of the Science/Literature research group (litorg.hypotheses.org) and co-editor of the journal epistemocritique.org. He has published a monograph on the role of the empathic, physiological body in the experience of reading (Corps/texte 2015). Acknowledgments 6 Contents 7 1 Introduction • Christopher L. Robinson, Sarah Bouttier, and Pierre-Louis Patoine 13 2 Always Coming Home and the Hinge in Ursula K. LeGuin’s Career • Brian Attebery 20 3 Making Narrative Connections with Ursula K. Le Guin, Rosi Braidotti, and Teresa de Lauretis • Christopher L. Robinson 37 4 Utopias Unrealizable and Ambiguous: Plato, Leo Strauss, and The Dispossessed • Dennis Wilson Wise 57 5 Many Voices in the Household: Indigeneity and Utopia in Le Guin’s Ekumen • Arwen Spicer 74 6 The Language of the Dusk: Anthropocentrism, Time, and Decoloniality in the Work of Ursula K. Le Guin • Katie Stone, Eli Lee, and Francis Gene-Rowe 91 7 The Dream of Power and the Power of Dreams: Ursula K. Le Guin and the X-Men • Stephanie Burt 114 8 Ursula K. Le Guin, Thinking in SF Mode • Isabelle Stengers 127 Author Index 143 Works by Le Guin 147 "The Legacies of Ursula K. Le Guin explores how Le Guins fiction and essays have built a speculative ethical practice engaging indigenous knowledge and feminism, while crafting utopias in which human and other-than-human life forms enter into new relations. Her work also delineates new ways of making sense of the "science" of science fiction. The authors of this collection provide up-to-date discussions of well-known works as well as more experimental writings. Written in an accessible style, Legacies will appeal to any readers interested in literature, science fiction and fantasy, as well as specialists of science and technology studies, philosophy of science, ethics, gender studies, indigenous studies and posthumanism."--Quatrième de couverture __The Legacies of Ursula K. Le Guin____Legacies__