This book explores contemporary existential science fiction media, including film, television, and video games, and their influence on society’s conceptions of memory, identity, and humanity. Most poignantly, Ryan Lizardi argues, are the ways in which a recent cluster of science fiction media, including Gravity (2013), Interstellar (2014), Legion (2017-2019), Westworld (2016-present), Soma (2015), and Death Standing (2019), among others, present a vision of the future that is inextricably tied to an exploration of humanity that is more contemplative and comparative than traditional science fiction. The combination of the existential nature of this current trend in science fiction with the genre’s ability to manifest these abstract concepts in a generic environment that is historically focused on new frontiers and ideas creates a powerful set of media texts that ask audiences to contemplate what it means to exist, think, and connect as human beings. Scholars of media studies, film studies, television studies, genre studies, and philosophy will find this book particularly useful.

This book explores contemporary existential science fiction media and their influence on society's conceptions of humanity. These media texts manifest abstract concepts in a genre that has historically focused on exploring new ideas and frontiers, creating powerful media that helps audiences contemplate their existence as human beings.

This book offers an in-depth exploration of science fiction literature's varied use of psychological discourses, beginning at the birth of modern psychology in the late nineteenth century and condluding wtith the ascendance of neuroscience in the late twnetieth century.

Gothic Science Fiction explores the fascinating world of gothic influenced science fiction. From Frankenstein to Doctor Who and from H. G Wells to Stephen King, the book charts the rise of a genre and follows the descent into darkness that consumes it.

The science fiction genre maintains a remarkable hold on the imagination and enthusiasm of the filmgoing public, captivating large audiences worldwide and garnering ever-larger profits. Science fiction films entertain the possibility of time travel and extraterrestrial visitation and imaginatively transport us to worlds transformed by modern science and technology. They also provide a medium through which questions about personal identity, moral agency, artificial consciousness, and other categories of experience can be addressed. In The Philosophy of Science Fiction Film, distinguished authors explore the storylines, conflicts, and themes of fifteen science fiction film classics, from Metropolis to The Matrix. Editor Steven M. Sanders and a group of outstanding scholars in philosophy, film studies, and other fields raise science fiction film criticism to a new level by penetrating the surface of the films to expose the underlying philosophical arguments, ethical perspectives, and metaphysical views. Sanders's introduction presents an overview and evaluation of each essay and poses questions for readers to consider as they think about the films under discussion.The first section, "Enigmas of Identity and Agency," deals with the nature of humanity as it is portrayed in Blade Runner, Dark City, Frankenstein, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Total Recall. In the second section, "Extraterrestrial Visitation, Time Travel, and Artificial Intelligence," contributors discuss 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Terminator, 12 Monkeys, and The Day the Earth Stood Still and analyze the challenges of artificial intelligence, the paradoxes of time travel, and the ethics of war. The final section, "Brave Newer World: Science Fiction Futurism," looks at visions of the future in Metropolis, The Matrix, Alphaville, and screen adaptations of George Orwell's 1984.

Cybernetic-Existentialism: Freedom, Systems, and Being-for-Others in Contemporary Arts and Performance offers a unique discourse and an original aesthetic theory. It argues that fusing perspectives from the philosophy of Existentialism with insights from the ‘universal science’ of cybernetics provides a new analytical lens and deconstructive methodology to critique art. In this study, Steve Dixon examines how a range of artists’ works reveal the ideas of Existentialist philosophers including Kierkegaard, Camus, de Beauvoir, and Sartre on freedom, being and nothingness, eternal recurrence, the absurd, and being-for-others. Simultaneously, these artworks are shown to engage in complex explorations of concepts proposed by cyberneticians including Wiener, Shannon, and Bateson on information theory and ‘noise’, feedback loops, circularity, adaptive ecosystems, autopoiesis, and emergence. Dixon’s groundbreaking book demonstrates how fusing insights and knowledge from these two fields can throw new light on pressing issues within contemporary arts and culture, including authenticity, angst and alienation, homeostasis, radical politics, and the human as system.

This reference tracks the development of speculative fiction influenced by the advancement of science and the idea of progress from the eighteenth century to the present day. The major authors and publications of the genre and significant subgenres are covered. Additionally there are entries on fields of science and technology which have been particularly prolific in provoking such speculation. The list of acronyms and abbreviations, the chronology covering the literature from the 1700s through the present, the introductory essay, and the dictionary entries provide science fiction novices and enthusiasts as well as serious writers and critics with a wonderful foundation for understanding the realm of science fiction literature. The extensive bibliography that includes books, journals, fanzines, and websites demonstrates that science fiction literature commands a massive following.