A Study Of Contemporary Feminist Utopias In Western Countries

The dissertation aims at expounding "feminist science fiction renaissance" or "mini-boom of feminist Utopias" in western science fiction world. (It mainly includes quite a lot of American authors and a few British, French and Canadian authors).The feminist Utopias sprouted in the 1950s and 1960s, boomed in the 1970s and 1980s ,and went down at the beginning of 1990s.As a genre, Science Fiction has a great influence on the contemporary world. Many famous scholars, such as Raymond Williams, Frederic James and Darko Suvin have paid much attention to it. In the world of SF, along with the second wave of feminism, "feminist science fiction renaissance" grew and developed very distinguished. It attempted to attack and subvert patriarchy system, and aroused deep revolutionary cultural and literary transformation. Because of it, science fiction field developed into a kind of important feminist cultural space.The reason why feminism could grow and develop in science fiction field is that SF has a very special and opulent cultural background—the SF fandom which began in the twenties and the thirties of the last century. The productive system of science fiction is marked by blurring all boundaries, the participants in this field, for example, people in position of production and consumption, often shift roles and take multiple positions. Generally speaking, those fields were suitable for creating and pursuing one's own dreams. During the sixties and the seventies, women authors inspired by feminist movement, broke through male's authority, and developed feminist public space.Combined with utopianism, science fiction has evolved into a kind of political criticism and was much of social and political praxis function, whereas, the division of SF culture from mainstream indicates how acute the multiple contemporary cultures are.Compared with mainstream Utopian canon, SF has more contact and interaction with this field. Many feminist authors adopted various genre reformations and new artistic techniques, their works combined SF canon with utopianism, furthermore, those works broke the strict boundary between light literature and high literature. In academic world, sometimes those works are called feminist Utopias, sometimes they are called feminist SF, in fact, they are actually the same things."Feminist science fiction renaissance" provides a typical case of the debate between classical literature and light literature in recent decades. This debate also involves the complex relationship between political or practical function and aesthetic essence of literature.Although study on feminist Utopias is very flourishing in western academia, in China it just begins. At present many feminist SF authors and their works haven't been introduced into China, and there are few translations of them. The author hopes that this dissertation can fill up this academic blank, and deepen feminism study in China. Besides, through the research of science fiction culture, its literature works and productive system, the author explores new perspectives of aesthetic ideas, discusses the new relationship between genre reformation and political praxis.As for the research method, the author introduces some western critics' theories, such as Ruth levitas' and Lucy Sargisson's ideas, to explain and comb out "feminist science fiction renaissance". Those critics thought Utopian works were productions of a general concept which is based upon "function" and can be called utopianism: firstly those feminist Utopias are part of the political practice, to examine their meanings and significances, their political and practical functions need to be stressed; secondly, the feminist Utopias were products of the second wave of feminism in the late half of last century, it is necessary to explore how feminist theories influenced Utopian works; finally, the writing strategies of feminist SF also had much to do with their political function, analyzing the artistic techniques and genre reformation will refresh and change our ideas of literature aesthetics. In brief, it's an integrate approach based upon political function.The dissertation colligates domestic and foreign academic study of this field, introduces Darko Suvin's and other scholars' ideas, breaks through internal-text approach of study, and integrates literature criticism and social praxis function. In summary, the paper deploys with three points of views: textual content, literary form and practical function, especially the last one. Three of them are integrated with each other.This dissertation is composed of foreword, six chapters and ending.Chapter One briefly explains the object, the method, the academic background of this subject and the theories and practical significance of this study. The author focuses on the definition of SF and Utopian genre, gives a brief account of the academic background of this paper, combs out a historical outline of feminist Utopias, introduces some academic theories such as Suvin's and other critics', and stresses SF critical values in contemporary society.Chapter Two attempts to examine the relationship between "the second wave" feminist theories and literature works. In detail, the author researches the branches and the influence of them on Utopian works. The second wave of feminism which was a kind of symbol in the culture revolution in the 1970s was the catalyzer and direct drive of feminist Utopian writings. During this period, many branches of feminism have exerted deep influence on Utopian works, especially the radical feminism and French feminine writing theories. In this chapter, the author makes a brief account of the connection between all those theories and Utopian writings.Chapter Three reviews science fiction culture, as political praxis, "the art worlds" of science fiction is very much of post modernism. Aiming at analyzing the writing strategies of feminist Utopias, the author introduces Suvin's, Moylan's and Cixious' theories, and explores how feminist narrative strategies influence "ideology shifting". The author focuses on explaining how genre transformations as subversive forms worked and how feminist public space formed and developed. Feminist Utopias gave prominence to the identity politics, stressed "the cognitive estrangement" from the mainstream SF canon (as well as the wider field of mainstream literature), and those authors adopted various new artistic strategies and genre reformations. All those reformations showed the authors' self-consciousness of the political function of genre. Numbers of women authors, readers and fans made active contribution in SF fandom, that aroused positive transform in this field. Science fiction fandom changed from a part of patriarchal system into feminist public space.Chapter Four and Chapter Five discuss the main authors and their works of feminist SF, make a systematic account of feminist Utopias and dystopias during this period. The author also gives separate sections to some important authors' works, including those of Le Gien's, Joanna Russ', Delany's, Elgin's and Atwood's, etc.Chapter four summarizes feminist Utopian writing in the 1970s. During this period, those works could mainly be divided into two options, one is the single-sex worlds (lesbian separatist Utopias), the other was two-sexes worlds (integrated Utopias or gender-free Utopias). This chapter reviews those two options respectively, compares both their achievements and weaknesses, gives separative parts to examine prominent authors and their works.Chapter five focuses on the feminist dystopias of the 1980s and 1990s. Male-dystopias writing was a very dominating form in SF field. The author tries to emphasize how feminist dystopias broke through the classic dystopian canon, and describes how those works brought new themes into this genre and how they infused dystopian vision with feminist elements, which emphasized urgent need for present action to determine our future, in other words, to maintain Utopian dreams inside the background of dystopian nightmare. The last section of this chapter is a summary and discussion of language reformation in feminist Utopias (including those works of the 1970s).Chapter Six explores and sums up three important themes of feminist Utopias: the relationship between science and ethic, the political designs of Utopia and new patterns of feminine subjectivity. Apparently The nature/culture distinction or the nature(female)/technology(male) distinction is the context of those works. Many single-sex Utopias were anti-technological worlds, which reflected women's rejection of aggressive technology. On the other hand, quite a few advanced feminist Utopias reversed the worship/horrifying attitude of male-SF canon towards technology, and introduced feminist perspective of science which combine reverence of human life and a harmonious balance with nature in the peaceful use of low-resource technology. According to this new vision, dynamic and multiple identities were shaped into new humanity. With the belief in the malleability of human nature, those future worlds logically opted to anarchism, aimed at changing the deep structure of patriarchal hierarchy and eliminating male values, which led to a new world: men and women live together in an egalitarian and non-exploitative way. Undoubtedly, these themes which are related and interacted with each other can be considered as the concrete meaning of "ideology shifting".