Technologies and Utopias (WisCon 28 papers)
Academic Papers•Conference Room 5• Saturday, 2:30–3:45 p.m.
"I'd Rather be a Cyborg than a Goddess: Technology, Spirituality and Hope" This paper will explore crucial intersections between technology and spirituality in The Gate to Women's Country; He, She and It and The Fifth Sacred Thing. It will highlight key issues about feminist investments in modern and postmodern epistemologies. In so doing, it will suggest that science fiction as a genre is more appropriate for the imagining of social transformation than academic theory. The central argument is that as a narrative genre, sf can tolerate paradox and maintain tension without lapsing into the dualisms to which even the most resolutely postmodern theory is prone.
"Making a Utopia: Ursula Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness" How does one create a world where there is no word for war? In Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, perpetual winter and a lack of nationalism help to create this world. In the eyes of an observer, this could be seen as a perfect place, save for the unusual sexual cycle of its still very human inhabitants. Through this novel, Le Guin posits that without reliance upon gender roles and their influence upon hierarchies, a better place, even if not a utopia, could be created.