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by: Marleen S. Barr
Amazon.com's Price: $27.50 Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.08762099287
EAN: 9780807844212
ISBN: 0807844217
Label: The University of North Carolina Press
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 248
Publication Date: November 01, 1993
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Sales Rank: 1941014
Studio: The University of North Carolina Press
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Archaeologists and anthropologists discover other civilizations; science fiction writers invent them. In this collection of her major essays, Marleen Barr argues that feminist science fiction writers contribute to postmodern literary canons with radical alternatives to mainstream patriarchal society. Because feminist science fiction challenges male-centered social imperatives, it has been marginalized and dismissed from the canon—thus, lost in space.
Moving beyond feminist science fiction itself, Barr goes on to examine other literary genres from the perspective of 'feminist fabulation'—a term she has coined to encompass science fiction, fantasy, utopian literature, and mainstream literature that critiques patriarchal fictions. Discussing the works of such writers as Margaret Atwood, Joanna Russ, Salman Rushdie, Paul Theroux, Ursula Le Guin, Herman Melville, Saul Bellow, Edgar Allan Poe, and Marge Piercy, Barr illuminates feminist science fiction's connections to other literary traditions and contemporary canons. Her critical analysis yields a new and expanded understanding of feminist creativity.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - As Sharp as a Serpent's Tooth and Twice as Venomous
Barr's collection of reviews is as sharp in its writing style as it is venomous against patriarchy. Her creation of "Feminist Fabulation" as a new literary category is clever and perhaps necessary to distinguish a sub-genre but threatens to further marginalize feminist science fiction to the most outer orbit of fiction's solar system. A more synthetic approach might have served as a better vehicle for launching a new literary genre.
I assigned the book for a graduate course ... Read More
Rating:  - Great collection of literature reviews!
Marleen S. Barr decided that she was going to be a reviewer for what was important to her and not what was important to her academic career -- would that more of us made that decision. The result of over a decade of her reviewing this important work, feminist science fiction and feminist fiction in general, is presented in this one volume of thirteen of her essays. For Barr feminist fiction challenges the patriarchy, it speaks the truth through exaggeration, and it pushes for change. And while ... Read More
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