Anthologies, awards, journals, and works in translation have sprung up to reflect science fiction's increasingly international scope. Yet scholars and students alike face a problem. Where does one begin to explore global SF in the absence of an established canon? Lingua Cosmica opens the door to some of the creators in the vanguard of international science fiction. Eleven experts offer innovative English-language scholarship on figures ranging from Cuban pioneer Daína Chaviano to Nigerian filmmaker Olatunde Osunsanmi to the Hugo Award-winning Chinese writer Liu Cixin. These essays invite readers to ponder the themes, formal elements, and unique cultural characteristics within the works of these irreplaceable—if too-little-known—artists. Dale Knickerbocker includes fantasists and genre-benders pushing SF along new evolutionary paths even as they draw on the traditions of their own literary cultures. Includes essays on Daína Chaviano (Cuba), Jacek Dukaj (Poland), Jean-Claude Dunyac (France), Andreas Eschbach (Germany), Angélica Gorodischer (Argentina), Sakyo Komatsu (Japan), Liu Cixin (China), Laurent McAllister (Yves Meynard and Jean-Louis Trudel, Francophone Canada), Olatunde Osunsanmi (Nigeria), Johanna Sinisalo (Finland), and Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (Russia). Contributors: Alexis Brooks de Vita, Pawel Frelik, Yvonne Howell, Yolanda Molina-Gavilán, Vibeke Rützou Petersen, Amy J. Ransom, Hanna-Riikka Roine, Hanna Samola, Mingwei Song, Tatsumi Takayuki, Juan Carlos Toledano Redondo, and Natacha Vas-Deyres.|
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Introduction / Dale Knickerbocker
Daína Chaviano's Science-Fiction Oeuvre: Fables of an Extraterrestrial Grandmother / Juan Carlos Tole
Jacek Dukaj's Science Fiction as Philosophy / Paweł Frelik
Jean-Claude Dunyach, Poet of the Flesh / Natacha Vas-Deyres
Andreas Eschbach's Futures and Germany's Past / Vibeke Rützou Petersen
Angélica Gorodischer: Only a Storyteller / Yolanda Molina-Gavilán
Sakyo Komatsu's Planetary Imagination: Reading Virus and The Day of Resurrection / Tatsumi Takayuki
Liu Cixin's Three-Body Trilogy: Between the Sublime Cosmos and the Micro Era / Mingwei Song
Laurent McAllister: Rhizomatic Space and the Posthuman / Amy J. Ransom
Olatunde Osunsanmi and Living the Transatlantic Apocalypse: The Fourth Kind / Alexis Brooks de Vita
Johanna Sinisalo and the New Weird: Genres and Myths / Hanna-Riikka Roine and Hanna Samola
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky: The Science-Fictionality of Russian Culture / Yvonne Howell
Contributors
Index
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"Comprising contributions by recognized critics, Lingua Cosmica is an excellent addition to the current scholarship on non-Anglo-American sf." — Science Fiction Studies
"Highly recommended." — Choice
"Knickerbocker has done a service with this collection of essays not only to fans of science fiction eager to explore new frontiers, but perhaps more importantly to academic at large, which historically has been reluctant to embrace speculative fiction as a serious subject of scholarly study." — Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
| Dale Knickerbocker is Distinguished Professor of Foreign Languages and Literatures at East Carolina University. He is the author of Juan José Millás: The Obsessive-Compulsive Aesthetic .

Knickerbocker, Dale; Chaviano, Daína; Dukaj, Jacek; Dunyach, Jean-Claude; Eschbach, Andreas; Gorodischer, Angélica; Komatsu, Sakyo; Liu, Cixin; McAllister, Laurent; Osunsanmi, Olatunde; Sinisalo, Johanna; Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris; de Vita, Alexis Brooks; Frelik, Pawel; Howell, Yvonne; Molina-Gavilán, Yolanda; Petersen, Vibeke Rützou; Ransom, Amy J; Roine, Hanna-Riikka; Samola, Hanna; Song, Mingwei; Takayuki, Tatsumi; Redondo, Juan Carlos Toledano; Vas-Deyres, Natacha

Dale Knickerbocker; ProQuest (Firm)

Jeffrey Escoffier

Illinois scholarship online, Urbana, 2019

United States, United States of America

1, 2018

"In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in interest by scholars in the US, the UK, and Anglophone Canada in science fiction from other regions. Organizations dedicated to science fiction and fantasy literatures worldwide have sprung up outside the Anglophone axis, several anthologies have appeared that either include or are entirely dedicated to international sf, and awards have been established to promote and reward scholarship and translation in the field. Genre studies journals have produced international-, area-, or nation-themed special issues. Despite all of this interest, scholarship on the topic is still in its infancy. Lingua Cosmica serves to introduce figures worthy of belonging to an international sf canon, filling the gap between survey-type studies and articles focusing on only one work. This volume features eleven essays by leading scholars on international sf authors/filmmakers: Daina Chaviano (Cuba), Jacek Dukaj (Poland), Jean-Claude Dunyach (France), Andreas Eschbach (Germany), Angelica Gorodischer (Argentina), Sakyo Komatsu (Japan), Liu Cixin (China), Laurent McAllister (Canada), Olatunde Osunsanmi (Nigerian-US American), Johanna Sinisalo (Finland), and Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (USSR/Russia). All of these authors possess one thing in common: there is little or no scholarship in English on their work"-- Provided by publisher

2025-10-27