JESSICA FITZPATRICK

Why "Sci-Fi"?

My research combines the fields of postcolonial theory, science fiction studies, new media, and spatial studies.  Why is a researcher based in postcolonial studies and world literature  studying science fiction (SF)?  The idea of protecting the direction of one’s future resonates with communities contending with the aftermath of non-local governance. While academia has begun to acknowledge the vital importance of the postcolonial-SF connection (as evidenced by Ralph Pordzik’s Postcolonial Utopia, Jessica Langer’s Postcolonialism and Science Fiction, Eric Smith’s Globalizaiton, Utopia and Postcolonial Science Fiction, and recent issues of the journal Paradoxa), there was a need to investigate the ways postcolonial SF artists use space to differentiate their narratives from, and engage in conversation with, previous works in both the SF and postcolonial canons. I posit postcolonial SF authors often individuate and politically mobilize their work with place oriented focuses. These are re-visionary narratives that alter hierarchies of power: Aliens do not ask to meet with the American President, but with an Indian experienced in a culturally similar caste system; individuals ostracized by society because they’re poor realize they don’t have to side with discriminatory humans during alien-human encounters; and the world's most technologically advanced centers of global commerce shift to locations throughout Africa. Through such innovative uses of Earthspaces, SF from the Global South combats the imperial basis of the SF genre and expands the possibilities offered in postcolonial literature, often encouraging more hopeful futurist imaginings than non-speculative 21st century fiction. These texts afford new questions for those teaching and researching in the postcolonial and Global literary fields, and offer a vivid new arena for geocritical examination.