Heresy as Method

The most significant obstacle confronting the academic study of science fiction and the linkages it creates between science and society is the academic study of science fiction and the linkages it creates between science and society. —Author’s Name Withheld

While the author who made the claim that the academic study of science fiction is its own worst enemy was clearly trying to be provocative, those who consider it to be flippant or in some other way inappropriate may wish to take a moment to reassess or at least temper that reaction. There was nothing offhand or good-humoured about the way the author who was about to be interviewed made that statement, and despite some recent shifts in academic approaches and perspectives and some improvement in the way academic researchers engage the genre, there is still a disturbing degree of substance behind that statement which makes it both significant and problematic.  From historical grudges, to ivory tower tribalism, to research paradigms and analytic logics that are incompatible with the ideals of what might be one of the most idealistic of genres, the unfortunate reality is that we still have a lot of road left to travel before we can leave behind what is now over a century of hostility, conflict, distrust and dysfunction between academia and the artists who write science fiction.

The introductory quote as well as the other expressions of dissatisfaction with the academic approach to the genre, only a few of which I note in this introduction, were spontaneous, and many were offered as we set up for the interviews, after the interviews, or in some cases in response to the initial request for an interview.[1]  In addition to the spontaneous nature of these comments, the passion behind the expression of some of these comments was striking.

Mostly I just find that the conventional literature professors simply don’t know anything.  There was one, (name redacted), who has obviously never really read any science fiction and is now writing criticism books about Science Fiction. — Author’s Name Withheld

Most of these people are rather worn out post-modernists that simply seem to hate something that they don’t understand, or maybe they hate it because they can’t understand it… And they have the gall to say that their interpretation of what I wrote is more meaningful than what I actually wrote and then they twist that around to put words in my mouth. Hate the bastards, and you can quote me on that. — Author’s Name Withheld

The disrespect that science fiction is shown on university campuses simply reflects the stunning, myopic stupidity of most literature professors. — Author’s Name Withheld

While the words chosen by the authors quoted might seem striking, the sentiment expressed appeared to be closer to the median rather than the extreme and this selection includes neither the most vitriolic, nor the most colourfully worded comments. Whether it was in the reasons offered for their reluctance to grant an interview to an academic researcher, or in the way a kind word was offered for how they felt that this approach differed from most, or simply a taking moment to vent some pent up frustration, in one way or another, some variation of these or similar sentiments were expressed by the majority of the authors interviewed.

These reactions do not arise out of a vacuum. It’s no secret that the hostility that academics have directed toward science fiction arguably stretches back to well before the notion of genre even existed. Luckhurst (2005) offers a succinct description of this conflict, placing it in the context of the industrial revolution’s creation of a literate workforce and the resulting rise in the production of reading materials meant to entertain that working-class audience. The of stories that would later be called science fiction were prominent in those publications, as were some of the early science fiction authors. H.G. Wells, as an example, both wrote what would become some of the great works in the genre and he participated in some of the early debates over the nature of literature itself. The fact that so many of Wells stories explored the human and philosophical implications of the mechanization of society in ways that can only be called literary complicated academic efforts to distinguish elite-oriented works from mass-market fiction, and may have been the catalyst for the following century of conflict.  The result of the effort to exclude science fiction along with other writings oriented toward that newly literate, working-class mass market became what can only be called a sustained, elitist, academic denigration of the genre.

This was far less of an issue with the youngest of the writers interviewed and that indirectly supports Luckhurst’s (2005) claim that there has been a recent but significant shift in the academic approach to the genre. However, it is fair to say that the longstanding estrangement of science fiction and academia is still a significant issue and it presented a substantive impediment to what should have been a simple and straightforward set of research interviews. In the end, even though this is not and was never meant to be an engagement with that conflict, the lingering hostility still had a significant influence on both the conduct and the resulting products of this study.

This history of hostility created difficulties in just securing the interviews.  Several authors were reluctant to participate until they were assured that I was not a film or literature professor, and more than one of the authors included in these interviews initially declined to be interviewed, but later reached out to me to set up an interview and explained that the change of heart was a result of hearing from another author that I had published a few science fiction novels of my own and that the intent of the project was to, as faithfully as possible, document the perspectives of the authors. The prioritization of the authors’ perspectives had always been part of this study. As part of a broader research project delving into the social and political dynamics inherent in the relationship between science and society, the goal was to find out how the authors conceptualized their role in that space between science and society and explore how that conceptualization might translate into their conceptualization of the genre. It was expect that this would then translate into a way of engaging constructively the authorial intent that influenced their choices and actions as writers. However, as the process of conducting the interviews unfolded it became clear that prioritising and documenting the voice of the authors, in as raw a form as possible, needed to be the primary focus of whatever I produced from these interviews.

Many of the authors explicitly, and wholly unprompted, said that my intent to try to faithfully represent what they actually had to say was the only reason they agreed to participate.  Others commented on how the literary analysis of science fiction seemed to be the only academic study of an artistic endeavour where the analysts disregarded or disparaged the skill and professionalism of the masters of the craft. This line of commentary didn’t just reflect the hostile comments that academics have historically directed at the genre and its products, it reflected a clear belief held by these authors that essential aspects of the genre were being missed or completely dismissed in the academic analyses. There were several variations on these kinds of comments that occurred within and around the interviews. Many authors mentioned how frustrating it was to put so much time, effort, training and skill into crafting every element of a novel so that it said exactly what they wanted it to say, only to have some academic come along and casually dismiss their professionalism, skill and intent as an author. Others, often those whose comments were more focused on the genre as a social phenomenon, expressed bewilderment over the what one those authors described as academia’s “Breathlessly self-congratulatory ignorance of Science Fiction offered as a virtue of paternalistic elitist pretentions.”

Again, much has changed over the last few decades and that change is continuing. The increased and increasing levels of engagement by persons studying the genre in the academic conference that is traditionally held in conjunction with the World Science Fiction Convention (World Con) is a clear indication of this change. As recently as 2010, the academic research presented at World Con might have best been described as recent work on the sciences related to science fiction, with a couple of papers presented about the genre. In contrast, in the 2019 World Con’s academic track, a slight majority of the presentations were on studies of the genre and as the academic conference for 2020 takes shape, that appears to have become the new norm. In fact, for the 2020 the academic conference, so much of the research is focused on the genre, that the academic track was renamed as “The academic and science track” in order to assure those conducting research in science related to science fiction that they still had, and would continue to have, a place alongside academics who were studying science fiction.

That is a remarkable shift to see in just a decade, but what makes it significant in this context is that it is hard to imagine an academic researcher presenting their work examining the genre at World Con if they are hostile to science fiction as a literary genre, or dismissive of the values of science fiction, or contemptuous of the skill and professionalism of the masters, of even just disconnected from what is valued by those who are deeply engaged in the genre. Further, that engagement and respect for the genre is qualitatively apparent in the academic research which is presented at World Con. It is difficult to quantify or otherwise identify the source of that impression other than to suggest that part of the answer might be found in which texts are selected for study but there is a clear qualitative contrast to conferences where there is no expectation that elite authors and others who are deeply engaged with the genre will be in the audience.  That might be taken as further indication of that change that Luckhurst (2005) discusses. However, the fact that it still feels like a contrast to the research on science fiction that is presented in other academic conferences might also be an indication that the self-congratulatory ignorance noted by one of the authors is not about to fade quietly into the history of the academic study of the genre.

The obstacles that have been thrown in front of this study, even before it was initiated, might also indicate there is still some distance we need to go before we leave that history behind us. What should have been a simple bureaucratic formality of documenting how some contractually-guaranteed university research funds were going to be used to conduct the interviews for this study, turned into a battle with one of the relevant committees which when they refused to wield the rubber stamp. That committee had regularly signed off on projects that studied the works or authors of pretty much every other genre imaginable, but for this study, a significant effort had to be invested in demonstrating that a study interviewing science fiction authors about how they conceptualized the relationship between their work and science was a legitimate area of academic research.

Some of the reviewer responses to an early paper written from these interviews bordered on the mind-blowing both in terms of the inherent hostility toward the genre, and the intellectual hubris of the anonymous reviewers. As is always the case, the majority of the comments were fair, constructive and helpful, but the comments made in a significant proportion of the reviews were astounding. Most common was some variation in the assertion that the perspectives of these authors were irrelevant to the study of the genre. These included several variations on the claim that Barthes (2001), Foucault (1979) and others had long ago established that authorship was irrelevant—an assertion difficult to accept in light of subsequent shifts in theories of authorship (Compagno 2012)— as well as one rather bizarre assertion that these elite science fiction authors were in some way ignorant of the nature and values of science fiction as a genre.

While not all of the authors interviewed here made negative or derisive comments about the academic study of science fiction, for those who did it was precisely those two points that seemed to be at the crux of their dissatisfaction.  Almost all who made a negative comment bristled at the idea that their authorship, their intent, their skill, artistry and craft was irrelevant. Comments stating or intimating that academics didn’t understand the values that define the heart and soul of the genre, or that academics didn’t even know what science fiction was, were even more common. Those also arose in the asides and conversational comments of authors who weren’t overtly expressing frustration with the academic study of science fiction.  Often this was a remark expressing confusion about works selected for study, a work offered as representative of a certain aspect of science fiction, and in one case a teasing, sarcastic comment that it would be a nice change of pace to talk with an academic who understood that science fiction was more than H.G. Wells, Ursula K. Le Guin, and obscure French novels that no one had ever even heard of.

The first of these frustrations is addressed by privileging the author’s voice as a key fundamental of this project. This is done through the structuring of the presentation of the information gathered as well as the subsequent analysis. While this inherently rejects the extreme interpretations of the debate over the death of authorship and denies claims that it is the text and only the text that matters, this is not meant as an assertion that the author is the only thing that matters. Instead, it is an assertion that authorship and the self-conceptualizations associated with authorship are significant, while intentionally leaving open the question of the extent to which authorship should be balanced against the interpretations and constructions derived from the texts (Compagno 2012).

The second of these frustrations is addressed by concluding this study by using the content of the interviews to inductively derive a working definition of science fiction from the comments made by these authors.  This turned out to be something of a natural product of these interviews because it was common for authors to describe or discuss how they conceptualized the linkage they provided between science and society in terms of those linkages simply being something inherent to science fiction itself. As a result, the exercise of mapping out how their comments describe that conceptual space between science and society tended to lead naturally toward a definition of the genre.  While this definition shares some similarities with academic definitions, the divergences are meaningful particularly in terms of the two critical ideals that define the centre of the genre, the accepted vagaries of certain borders between science fiction and other genres, and what distinguishes science fiction from other texts that link science and society.

Heresy as Method

There is no simple answer to how this study should fit into the mix of positive change and a lingering, problematic history. There is also no obvious way to position, present or frame it to best convey what it has to offer by prioritizing the perspectives of the authors, so the decision to conceptualize it as a challenge to an academic orthodoxy—or to put it crudely, an act of academic heresy—might best be considered an imperfect compromise. The primary intent of choosing this approach is to facilitate the ability of others to evaluate or use this material in a manner that they feel is most appropriate without trying to anticipate what aspects of what these authors have to say will be significant to their research. This choice does not arise out of a vacuum, and it has proven to be been reasonably effective in accomplishing exactly that goal of empowering those who might use the text and the information it offers in unanticipated ways.

This idea of a heretical mindset is an adaptation of the example offered in Robert Bakker’s Dinosaur Heresies (Bakker 1986) and it has previously been applied to areas of study in the social and political sciences (Van Belle 2006, 2008, 1997, 2015). These earlier efforts extended some of the underlying elements in the way the post-structuralist intellectual tradition had been applied to the study of foreign policy and international politics (McGowan 1989; Ashley 1984; Soguk 1999). Specifically, a deliberate effort was made to deconstruct the way that existing structures of enquiry defined the questions that could be explored.  However, unlike the post-structuralist approach as applied in the social sciences, the deconstruction was a starting point rather than the goal.  In the previous applications of this ‘heretical approach’(Van Belle 2006, 2008, 1997, 2015), the deconstruction was used to dig down as close as possible to first principles, then question, rethink and sometimes discard the presumptions or assumptions of the theories that initiated the line of inquiry and then from there construct an alternative theoretical model as a way of generating new perspectives and, hopefully, fresh insights into persistent and vexing puzzles.

Here, however, the heretical approach means more in terms of mindset than practicalities because little if any deconstruction of the academic approach to science fiction was necessary. While it is clearly a gross exaggeration to say that the perspectives of the people creating science fiction have been excluded from the academic engagement with the genre, their perspectives certainly have not been integral to much of the theorizing and other intellectual foundations that define the various academic perspectives. As an example, a 1992 collection of essays about the genre, written by some of the more prominent science fiction writers at the time (Jakubowski and James 1992) has only been cited six times, and not at all in peer-reviewed research.[2] As a result, these largely excluded voices can be treated as just that, largely excluded, and a reasonable alternative to the existent academic perspectives can be constructed simply by treating the situation as if the slate were blank and working just from the comments of these authors.

Additionally, the argument central to John Platt’s strong inference (Platt 1964) plays some part in how these interviews are presented and then analysed here.  Platt argued that getting buried or lost in complex abstract academic debates was one of the surest ways for the pursuit of knowledge to go nowhere, and the best way to understand something was to focus on what people actually do and what they are trying to do.  Platt was talking about the academic struggle to conceptualize how science progresses, but the same idea of first asking what people do or are trying to do applies here. In this case, the questions to be asked are: Who are these authors? What do they intend to accomplish with their writing? And; How do they conceptualize that intent? Their answers then outline their understanding of science fiction as part of the mediated space between science and society, what it looks like, and how it functions.

The analysis that is produced from these interviews is presented as a charting exercise, a mapping of the conceptual space of science fiction which. That offered a way of linking the comments of the authors to the academic study of science fiction, and it naturally culminates with the inductive derivation of a definition of science fiction that might be a useful mechanism for bring authorship back in on the terms of the authors. However, this project can also be treated as, for lack of a better term, a data set.  The interviews are presented with as little editing and commentary as possible, staying as close as possible to the transcripts while still making them readable.  To protect the respondents and the occasional person they mention directly, a few comments and asides are excised (some of which have already been presented without attribution) but a meticulous effort has been made to ensure the presentation of these interviews matches what the authors intended to say. [3]  The interviews are then used as the foundation for charting the conceptual space of science fiction and analysing what insights might be gleaned from considering that exercise.

For academics that definition might be particularly interesting in the way it identifies where the authors accept ambiguity and indistinct boundaries as inherent to the genre, and where they draw clear lines or have clearly necessary requirements for what must be included in any definition.  However, even in that, the derivation is being offered as an example (and perhaps a provocation) rather than definitive.  It is also offered as a complement to what exists and might best be approached as an additional perspective on topics that are addressed by extant research.

The obvious critique that will arise is that this study’s engagement with the extensive and diverse body of existing research on science fiction is limited and superficial.  That is valid, but that is also the point of a heretical approach. The idea is, to the extent it is possible, create this charting of the space independently of the literary study of the genre and independently of the examination of the communicative roles of science fiction, and there are good reasons to make that effort. First, any direct engagement of exemplars of, or from within, the history of academic hostility and outright disdain for the genre will serve to situate this material within those frameworks. That will then undermine the effort to treat this as something close to a blank slate in order to prioritise the voices of the authors. Second, there is a desire to respect and complement the existing research literature, particularly the work that has embodied the shift in approach over the last few decades. That is pursued here by refusing to presume how, when, or if this representation of the authors’ perspectives might prove valuable.

While some will react poorly to this, the intent is to be complimentary and constructive by offering an alternative perspective that can be used as a foundation for conceptual triangulation as we all strive to leave that history of conflict in the past. Scholars can deconstruct texts in countless ways, as has often been done in the study of representations of the scientist and science in science fiction (i.e. Petkova and Boyadjieva 1994; Long and Steinke 1996; Van Gorp, Rommes, and Emons 2014).  However, even though the clash between academia and the genre has faded over the last few decades, the extreme variety of interpretations that can be derived from those deconstructions remains problematic.  It is hoped that adding more information regarding authorial perspectives and keeping that information as independent as possible, will add to the more common examinations of the film and fiction texts by offering an additional dimension of information and contextualization.

An additional consideration that probably should be included when making judgements about the extent to which the authors’ perspectives are relevant is that when science fiction is considered in terms of the socio-political communication roles that it might play, the social and political intent driving these authors’ representations of futures or imagined universes is a profoundly salient part of their creative process.  In fact, it is such a common feature of science fiction that some might consider authorial intent to be a defining aspect of the genre. The most obvious examples can be seen in the cautionary tales that have been essential to the genre from its earliest incarnations.  While it can be argued that all writers have a point to make and as such are writing with intent, salience of the science fiction authors desire to warn us in those cautionary tales, or otherwise shape how our future unfolds may be unique to science fiction.

As quickly becomes evident in these interviews, the ways in which authorial intent manifests itself in the genre are as boundless as the stories themselves.  As Keven J. Anderson notes in the interview, when science fiction authors translocate socially-contentious, controversial or emotionally-charged topics such as race or same-sex relationships onto safer subjects such as robots or aliens, they do this with the specific intention of creating the social and conceptual distance needed to more dispassionately explore the related social, moral and political implications.  David Gerrold talks about how utopian visions of the future–such as the central conceit of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek (Roddenberry 1966)–are created with explicit intent to inspire those who would help attain them.   David Brin notes that his stories about challenges to the very survival of our species, such as Earth (1990) or Existence (2012), are offered as investigations into how we might be able overcome those looming crises.  Implications of certain technologies, the effects of technologies on the human condition, or the very nature of humanity, all of those aspects of science fiction add an additional level of intent in the writing of a story, and in many ways they also represent the heart and soul of science fiction.

Science fiction novelists so often write stories that carry that extra level of social and political intent that any reasonably informed reader of the genre would consider it odd that the perspective of the author, including their understanding of the space they are writing in and from, is not considered as an essential element of the academic study of the genre.  That intent is part of what defines how the genre exists in the space between science and society and it defines what it is. It is the bedrock of how the artists that drive the genre conceptualize their place and role in that social, intellectual and sometimes physical space between science and society.

This study explores these questions by asking the authors and then roughly mapping out, or charting, a few key aspects of how those authors describe the space of science fiction.

Notes

[1] Despite the fact that the authors offered these comments proactively and all explicitly said that I could quote them on these points, any quote that might negatively impact the future academic analysis of these authors’ works is left unattributed as a reflection of the “all due care and caution” parameters for avoiding harm, as per the human subjects approvals for this study.  Also, unless authors expressly indicated that I could quote them, I do not include any statements, attributed or not, that occurred outside of the interviews.

[2] As indicated by a Google Scholar search conducted on 20 May 2019.

[3] The authors were also provided the edited transcript of their interviews and given the opportunity to request changes or add footnotes to clarify points.

This is from Between Science and Society: Charting the Space of Science Fiction (Lexington Books, 2021).

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