Science Fiction in India: Parallel Worlds and Postcolonial Paradigms
Nominated, 2023 Teaching Literature Book Award

Indian Science Fiction has evolved over the years and can be seen making a mark for itself on the global scene. Dalit speculative fiction writer and editor Mimi Mondal is the first SF writer from India to have been nominated for the prestigious Hugo award. In fact, Indian SF addresses themes such as global climate change. Debates around G.C.C are not just limited to science fiction but also permeate in critical discussions on SF.
This volume seeks to examine the different ways by which Indian SF narratives construct possible national futures. For this looking forward necessarily germinates from the current positional concerns of the nation. While some work has been done on Indian SF, there is still a perceptible lack of an academic rigor invested into the genre; primarily, perhaps, because of not only its relative unpopularity in India, but also its employment of futuristic sights. Towards the same, among other things, it proposes to study the growth and evolution of science fiction in India as a literary genre which accommodates the duality of the national consciousness as it simultaneously gazes ahead towards the future and glances back at the past. In other words, the book will explore how the tensions generated by the seemingly conflicting forces of tradition and modernity within the Indian historical landscape are realized through characteristic tropes of SF storytelling. It also intends to look at the interplay between the spatio-temporal coordinates of the nation and the SF narratives produced within to see, firstly, how one bears upon the other and, secondly, how processes of governance find relational structures with such narratives. Through these, the volume wishes to interrogate how postcolonial futures promise to articulate a more representative and nuanced picture of a contemporary reality that is rooted in a distinct cultural and colonial past.
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Science Fiction in India: Parallel Worlds and Postcolonial Paradigms
Nominated, 2023 Teaching Literature Book Award

Indian Science Fiction has evolved over the years and can be seen making a mark for itself on the global scene. Dalit speculative fiction writer and editor Mimi Mondal is the first SF writer from India to have been nominated for the prestigious Hugo award. In fact, Indian SF addresses themes such as global climate change. Debates around G.C.C are not just limited to science fiction but also permeate in critical discussions on SF.
This volume seeks to examine the different ways by which Indian SF narratives construct possible national futures. For this looking forward necessarily germinates from the current positional concerns of the nation. While some work has been done on Indian SF, there is still a perceptible lack of an academic rigor invested into the genre; primarily, perhaps, because of not only its relative unpopularity in India, but also its employment of futuristic sights. Towards the same, among other things, it proposes to study the growth and evolution of science fiction in India as a literary genre which accommodates the duality of the national consciousness as it simultaneously gazes ahead towards the future and glances back at the past. In other words, the book will explore how the tensions generated by the seemingly conflicting forces of tradition and modernity within the Indian historical landscape are realized through characteristic tropes of SF storytelling. It also intends to look at the interplay between the spatio-temporal coordinates of the nation and the SF narratives produced within to see, firstly, how one bears upon the other and, secondly, how processes of governance find relational structures with such narratives. Through these, the volume wishes to interrogate how postcolonial futures promise to articulate a more representative and nuanced picture of a contemporary reality that is rooted in a distinct cultural and colonial past.
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Science Fiction in India: Parallel Worlds and Postcolonial Paradigms

Science Fiction in India: Parallel Worlds and Postcolonial Paradigms

by Bloomsbury Publishing
Science Fiction in India: Parallel Worlds and Postcolonial Paradigms

Science Fiction in India: Parallel Worlds and Postcolonial Paradigms

by Bloomsbury Publishing

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Overview

Nominated, 2023 Teaching Literature Book Award

Indian Science Fiction has evolved over the years and can be seen making a mark for itself on the global scene. Dalit speculative fiction writer and editor Mimi Mondal is the first SF writer from India to have been nominated for the prestigious Hugo award. In fact, Indian SF addresses themes such as global climate change. Debates around G.C.C are not just limited to science fiction but also permeate in critical discussions on SF.
This volume seeks to examine the different ways by which Indian SF narratives construct possible national futures. For this looking forward necessarily germinates from the current positional concerns of the nation. While some work has been done on Indian SF, there is still a perceptible lack of an academic rigor invested into the genre; primarily, perhaps, because of not only its relative unpopularity in India, but also its employment of futuristic sights. Towards the same, among other things, it proposes to study the growth and evolution of science fiction in India as a literary genre which accommodates the duality of the national consciousness as it simultaneously gazes ahead towards the future and glances back at the past. In other words, the book will explore how the tensions generated by the seemingly conflicting forces of tradition and modernity within the Indian historical landscape are realized through characteristic tropes of SF storytelling. It also intends to look at the interplay between the spatio-temporal coordinates of the nation and the SF narratives produced within to see, firstly, how one bears upon the other and, secondly, how processes of governance find relational structures with such narratives. Through these, the volume wishes to interrogate how postcolonial futures promise to articulate a more representative and nuanced picture of a contemporary reality that is rooted in a distinct cultural and colonial past.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9789354353437
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date: 05/30/2022
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 276
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Shweta Khilnani is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College, University of Delhi. She is a PhD scholar at the Department of English, University of Delhi and her dissertation explores the nexus between the literary, the affective and the political with respect to digital narratives. She is interested in the study of popular cultures and theories of contemporary literature. She is the co-editor of Imagining Worlds, Mapping Possibilities: Select Science Fiction Stories.

Ritwick Bhattacharjee is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English, SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi. He has done his MPhil from the Department of English, University of Delhi. His research interests are in fantasy studies, phenomenology, continental philosophy, Indian English novels, disability studies and graphic novels. His publications range from academic articles on philosophy, fantasy, politics, disability and translation to journalistic articles and fiction.
Shweta Khilnani is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College, University of Delhi. She is a PhD scholar at the Department of English, University of Delhi and her dissertation explores the nexus between the literary, the affective and the political with respect to digital narratives. She is interested in the study of popular cultures and theories of contemporary literature. She is the co-editor of Imagining Worlds, Mapping Possibilities: Select Science Fiction Stories.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Shweta Khilnani and Ritwick Bhattacharjee
Three Prolegomena by Shweta Khilnani, Ritwick Bhattacharjee and Saikat Ghosh
Book I: Paradigms
Chapter 1: Steampunk Probes: Parody and the Allegorical Retrieval of History in Sumit Bardhan's Arthatrishna by Saikat Ghosh
Chapter 2: Parallel 'Discoveries': (Re-) Constructing the 'Scientific' Enterprise in The Calcutta Chromosome by Jaya Yadav
Chapter 3: Decolonising Encounters of the Indian Kind: Reading the Postcolonial 'Other' in Vandana Singh's The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories by Devapriya Sanyal
Chapter 4: Green Men: Power, Dystopia and the Politics of Genre in Bengali Postcolonial SF by Subhadeep Ray
Chapter 5: E Pur Si Muove: Towards a Decolonial Scholarship of Kalpavigyan Literature by Rajarshi Roy
Chapter 6: Actor-Network Theory and the Postcolonial: A Reading of Amitav Ghosh's The Calcutta Chromosome by Sayan Parial
Book II: Worlds
Chapter 7: The Day After Tomorrow in Bengaluru: Environment, Global Climate Change and Dystopia(s) by Sami Ahmad Khan
Chapter 8: 'The Sea Eats People': Capitalocenic Dystopia in Rimi B. Chatterjee's 'Arisudan' by Indrani Das Gupta and Shraddha A. Singh
Chapter 9: Spectral Cities and Spectral Selves in Shockwave and Other Cyber Stories by Sanam Khanna
Chapter 10: An Alternative Vision of Science: Intersections of Science, Sustainability and Feminism in Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain's Sultana's Dream by Anu Susan Abraham and Antara Chatterjee
Chapter 11: Women Who Think They Are Planets and Other Bodies: Feminist Interventions in Indian SF by Saloni Sharma
Chapter 12: Who's Afraid of Postcolonial Dystopia? Reflections on Contemporary Science Fiction in India by Shikha Vats
Chapter 13: Remembering/Dismembering: Tenuous Utopic Formulations in Nur Nasreen Ibrahim's and Mimi Mondal's Short Stories by Srinjoyee Dutta
Chapter 14: Futurism in Indian Cinema: A Case Study of Anukul by Jigyasa H. Sondhi
Chapter 15: 'The White City Turns Remaining Humans into Machines': Urban Dystopia and Posthumanism in Appupen's The Snake and the Lotus: A Halahala Adventure by Tanushree Ghosh
Chapter 16: Taking (Back) Control: Surveillance and Power Politics in Prayaag Akbar's Leila and Samit Basu's Chosen Spirits by Anik Sarkar
About the Editors
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