Star Warriors of the Modern Raj

Materiality, Mythology and Technology of Indian Science Fiction

Inbunden, Engelska, 2021

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India is mutating - and its Science Fiction (SF) with it. Star Warriors of the Modern Raj is a critical catalogue of contemporary India's anglophone SF, a path-breaking work that flits between texts, vantage points and frameworks. An alternative to a male Eurocentric perspective of SF, this study avoids essentialising definitions and delves into how the world of SF (text) intersects with that of the writer/reader. Fusing paradigms of Science Fiction Studies, South Asian Studies and Postcolonial Studies, among others, the book explicates how India and its SF negotiate one another. It evolves a 'transMIT thesis' to analyse how mythology (M), ideology (I) and technology (T) contour Indian SF and its fictional reimaginings. This study identifies the manifestations of divine beings within SF (as differing epistemological categories), locates the modes of marginalisation within Indian popular imagination (as altars of alterity), and then proceeds to analyse how newer technologies engage with socio-political anxieties in (and through) SF.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2021-06-15
Mått138 x 216 x 23 mm
Vikt472 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieNew Dimensions in Science Fiction
Antal sidor272
FörlagUniversity of Wales Press
ISBN9781786837622

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Sami Ahmad Khan is a novelist, academic and documentary producer. Sami is the recipient of a Fulbright grant to the University of Iowa, and holds a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi. His future-war debut Red Jihad won two literary awards, and his second novel Aliens in Delhi garnered rave reviews; he has taught at IIT Delhi, Jindal Global University and JNU, and presently discusses life and literature at GGS Indraprastha University, Delhi.

Author's NoteList of Illustrations-- 3 ('IN situ Model', 'transMIT thesis' and 'TIMography')List of Tables-- 1 (ISFE's Soul)Content AcknowledgementsPart I (SF-101)Part II (Materiality)Section Prologue: The Altar of Alterity Section Epilogue: The Materiality Menace Part III (Mythology)Section Prologue: Hey Bhagwan, the ET has Landed!Section Epilogue: Revenge of the MythPart IV (Technology)Section Prologue: Beat, Prey, Love Section Epilogue: The Technology AwakensPart V (Conclusion)Works CitedGlossary

"In Star Warriors of the Modern Raj, India--one of the most complex and diverse political cultures in the world system--meets one of the most capacious and mutable artistic genres, science fiction. Sami Ahmad Khan’s book – the first major work devoted to contemporary Indian Science Fiction in English – makes two important contributions to the study of global SF. The first is an original and sophisticated theory tailored for SF in a country where science and myth interflow, and where caste, religion, language, and geopolitics affect every aspect of social life. The second is an exciting introduction to recent works by Anglophone Indian writers. Star Warriors of the Modern Raj is an invaluable addition to the growing scholarship on Indian science fiction that will be immensely useful for future work on emerging SF cultures." --Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr., DePauw University, co-editor of Science Fiction Studies