| The purpose of this thesis on feminist science fiction utopianism in the American, British, Canadian, French, German, and Italian literatures is twofold. First, we strive for a more solid classificatory foundation in our field by proposing typological descriptions for utopianism and science fiction (and some related genres), as well as for feminist science fiction utopianism as subgenre of both. We specify our notion of genre in terms of a generic competence, that is: as knowledge of a body of pragmatic, semantic and surface rules that govern text production and reception. The formulation of the various generic requirements is undertaken within the framework of a semantically based transformational text grammar (Chapters II to IV, Part A).;Second, we seek to arrive at a first mapping of feminist science fiction utopianism's diachrony in the Western literatures focused upon, from 1820 to 1987. Initially, we situate the particular national streams of feminist (science fiction) utopianism considered within the literary and political climate of their times and countries of origin, and trace the genre's axiological and ideological history (Chapter IV, Parts B to D). Guided by the notion of utopian rhetorical persuasio, the compository strategies employed in the genre over time are subsequently explored in Chapter V, which offers diachronic surveys of narrative framing and narrative modes. Chapter VI, then, highlights four general topoi that have become literally and metaphorically central to feminist SF utopianism--science and technology, history, psychology, and linguistics--to delineate the genre's global thematic development. |
