Science fiction at the border

Smith, Meagan Kathleen

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116221 Copy

Description

Title

Science fiction at the border

Author(s)

Smith, Meagan Kathleen

Issue Date

2022-07-14

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Kaganovsky, Lilya

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Kaganovsky, Lilya

Committee Member(s)

• Littlefield, Melissa M
• Calderwood, Eric S
• Rushing, Robert

Department of Study

Comparative & World Literature

Discipline

Comparative Literature

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Science fiction
• speculative fiction
• border studies

Abstract

This dissertation examines representations of border walls in speculative fiction. Films and novels analyzed include: What is to be done? by Nikolai Chernyshevsky; We by Evgeny Zamyatin; Sleep Dealer, directed by Alex Rivera; the MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood; A Planet for Rent by Yoss; and Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. Using a theoretical framework that combines biopolitics, Marxist literary analysis and critiques of neoliberalism as well as border studies scholarship, I argue that border walls have been a useful trope in utopian world-building from the industrial and political revolutions of the nineteenth century, through the Cold War and the technological revolution of the twentieth century, and that they remain relevant to both our literary and political imagination in the twenty-first century.

Graduation Semester

2022-08

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2022 Meagan Smith

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