Classical Traditions in Science Fiction

Brett M. Rogers is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Puget Sound. Benjamin Eldon Stevens is Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at Hollins University.

• Preface ; Introduction: The True History of The Future (and Its Future) ; Brett M. Rogers ; Benjamin Eldon Stevens ; Part I: SF's Rosy-Fingered Dawn ; 1. The Lunar Setting of Johannes Kepler's Somnium, Science Fiction's Missing Link ; Dean Swinford ; 2. Lucretius, Lucan, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein ; Jesse Weiner ; 3. Virgil in Jules Verne's Journey to The Center of The Earth ; Benjamin Eldon Stevens ; 4. Mr. Lucian in Suburbia: Links between The True History and The First Men in The Moon ; Antony Keen ; Part II: SF 'Classics' ; 5. A Complex Oedipus: The Tragedy of Edward Morbius ; Gregory S. Bucher ; 6. Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz, The Great Year, and The Ages of Man ; Erik Grayson ; 7. Time and Self-Referentiality in The Iliad and Frank Herbert's Dune ; Joel Christensen ; 8. Disability as Rhetorical Trope in Classical Myth and Blade Runner ; Rebecca Raphael ; Part III: Classics in Space ; 9. Moral and Mortal in Star Trek: The Original Series ; George Kovacs ; 10. Hybrids and Homecomings in The Odyssey and Alien Resurrection ; Brett M. Rogers ; 11. Classical Antiquity and Western Identity in Battlestar Galactica ; Vincent Tomasso ; Part IV: Ancient Classics for a Future Generation? ; 12. Revised Iliadic Epiphanies in Dan Simmons' Ilium ; Gael Grobety ; 13. Refiguring the Roman Empire in The Hunger Games Trilogy ; Marian Makins ; 14. Jonathan Hickman's Pax Romana and The End of Antiquity ; C. W. Marshall ; Appendix ; Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing ; Robert W. Cape, Jr. ; Works Cited

on a journey through the modern history of SF ... pointing out sites of classical interest along the way ... raises some big questions