Starboard Vineyard Tours 8: Critical Theory and Science Fiction, Freedman

This month, we read Carl Freedman’s Critical Theory and Science Fiction (2000) and continue our journey through the Suvinian tradition. We discuss a lot of the first thing, critical theory, and a lot of the second thing, science fiction. We consider the connections he draws between various philosophers and critics on the one hand and various classics of SF, especially New Wave SF, ranging from Solaris to The Dispossessed to Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, on the other. On the gripping hand, we come to grips with Freedman’s argument that SF is, or at least should be, the privileged genre of critical theory, and SVT becomes a theory podcast for a hot minute. And also, we discuss the single page selection from this book that’s become Freedman’s most commonly cited idea (it’s in the introduction).Topics: Cognition effect, cognitive estrangement, critical theory, utopia, dialectics.Next month, we read the SF studies work with the best title of all time: Do Metaphors Dream of Literal Sleep? A Science-Fictional Theory of Representation (2010) by Seo-Young Chu.