Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Dorothy Scarborough. 'Supernatural Science' (1917), Arthur B. Evans

Global Language Studies Faculty publications

Introduced and annotated by Arthur B. Evans In its day, Dorothy Scarborough’s book The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction (1917) was considered to be the best scholarly study on the subject. As the author points out in the book’s preface, the sheer size of its corpus was impressive: “the supernatural in modern English fiction has been found difficult to deal with because of its wealth of material. While there has been no previous book on the topic, and none related to it ... the mass of fiction itself introducing ghostly or psychic motifs is simply enormous” (v). Scarborough divided her …

Not So Dystopian: A Historical Reading Of Eugenics In Science Fiction, Riley Sanders

The Forum: Journal of History

Broadly, this paper is an effort in complicating traditional readings of eugenic themes in science fiction. Two landmark novels, Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) and Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), are highlighted as representative of the early and late stages of eugenics. By focusing on the troubling historical context surrounding these authors, I denounce the simple reading of these works as merely “dystopian”. Scholars like Francis Fukuyama advance these simplistic readings by instinctively assuming that Wells and Huxley were against eugenics. This paper continues the tradition that David Bradshaw popularized in his book The Hidden Huxley, which argues …

Miracle, Gabrielle Sullivan

Honors College Theses

This original, speculative fiction novella follows Miracle Beckett, a young woman raised on a dying, climate-change ravaged Earth in an isolated religious cult. While she eventually escapes, she finds herself trapped in another deathtrap, abandoned by her crewmates on a spaceship that is rapidly running out of air. Struggling to reconcile her past with her present and her imminent death, Mira cannot avoid remembering everything she has tried to leave behind.

Engaging with sexual identity, religious trauma, and the difficulty found in reconciling the complexities of a left-behind existence, Miracle highlights the power of memory, friendship, and knowledge in guiding …

The Ever-Present Dystopia, The Non-Present Utopia, And The Thirdspace: The Role Of Contrasting Coteries In 20th-Century Dystopian Literature And Parable Of The Sower, Billie Rose Newby

HON 499 Honors Thesis or Creative Project

Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower is a standout work of dystopian science fiction that features commentaries on governmental failings, race and gender discrimination, and class divides that are all highlighted by an apocalyptic and oppressive crumbling society. Butler uses a dystopic setting, characteristics, and tropes to embellish her world and social commentaries including the use of the dystopic and thirdspace coteries structure: two personal communities within which the central character interacts that hold very specific roles and characteristics across most works of dystopian literature. This structure allows dystopian literature to establish their distinctive world and tone as well as …