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Chapter 2 - American Futures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2024

Sherryl Vint
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside
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Summary

This chapter looks at the ways sf visions of the future published in the decades following World War II both challenge the dominant ideology of American exceptionalism – the notion that the United States is a single homogenous nation uniquely exempt from history – and the Program Era division between literary and genre fiction. Both Program Era realism and sf develop representations of the present. However, sf’s mirror is a distorting anamorphic one, presenting imaginary futures that help its readers cognize the contradictions, conflicts, and struggles that are always at work in any historical situation, and which naturalizing formulations such as American exceptionalism occlude. The chapter traces shifting practices of representing the future, beginning with 1950s dystopias, postapocalypses, and alternate histories through the radical visions of the New Wave and the new practices of postmodern cyberpunk and critical dystopia up to the recent wave of literary sf and climate change fiction.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • American Futures
  • Edited by Sherryl Vint, University of California, Riverside
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
  • Online publication: 09 May 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009180078.003
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  • American Futures
  • Edited by Sherryl Vint, University of California, Riverside
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
  • Online publication: 09 May 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009180078.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • American Futures
  • Edited by Sherryl Vint, University of California, Riverside
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
  • Online publication: 09 May 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009180078.003
Available formats
×