Futures of the Past

Ivy Roberts is a film and media studies scholar. She is an Adjunct Professor in the department of Digital Media and Web Technology at the University of Maryland Global Campus. Her research investigates early media cultures and practices. She lives in Washington, D.C.

• Table of ContentsIntroduction (Ivy Roberts)The Future from the Past: Mary Shelley’s “Reanimated Englishman” (Joanna Harker Shaw)“Roger Dodsworth: The Reanimated Englishman” (1826/1863) by Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyLady Mesmer Circumnavigates the Scientific Imagination in Poe’s “The ­Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade” (Beth Atkins)“The ­Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade” (1845) by Edgar Allan PoeEdward Page Mitchell: Evolution and American Equality (Rob Welch)“The Senator’s Daughter” (1879) by E.P. Mitchell“Runaway Cyclone,” Or: The First Bengali Science Fiction Story (Christin Hoene)“Runaway Cyclone” (1896/1921) by Jagadish Chandra Bose, translated by Bodhisattva ChattopadhyayThomas Edison’s Hypnotizing Machine: Technology, Science Fiction and “Progress” (Ivy Roberts)“In the Deep of Time” (1896–7), Synopsis and Chapter VIII (of VIII): “Sea Signaling—The Final Flight” by George (Parsons Lathrop)The Emotional Birth of AI in “Moxon’s Master” (Rob Welch)“Moxon’s Master” (1899), by Ambrose BierceThe Science Fiction Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Jessie F. Terrell, Jr.)At the Earth’s Core (1914), Chapter 1: “Toward the Eternal Fires” by Edgar Rice Burroughs“The Glittering Lady” (Riccardo Gramantieri)When the World Shook (1919), Chapter 11: “Resurrection” by H. Rider HaggardFuture Predictions of Past Technologies: “In 1999” and the History of the Future (Ivy Roberts)“In 1999: Scientific Progress in the Last Century” (1921) by B. Franklin RuthScientifiction, Relativism and the Multiverse: Introduction to “The Man from the Atom” (Riccardo Gramantieri)“The Man from the Atom” (1923) by G. Peyton WertenbakerAbout the ContributorsIndex