Alterity and Capitalism in Speculative Fiction Estranging Contemporary History

Speculative fiction has been traditionally studied in Marxist literary criticism, following Darko Suvin’s paradigmatic model of science fiction, according to a hierarchical division of its multiple subgenres in terms of their assumed inherent political value. By drawing on an alternative genealogy of Marxist criticism, this book presents a non-hierarchical understanding of the estrangement connecting all varieties of speculative fiction, outlining the political potential shared across the spectrum of speculative fiction, along with the specific narrative strategies by which it critically engages with its historical context of production. This study’s main point of contention is that speculative fiction performs an estrangement effect on historical reality that can potentially render visible the role of fantasies in the organisation of capitalist social practice. This narrative effect enables an estranged perspective by which the novel interprets and conceptualises historical reality ina totalising manner.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Anamorphic Estrangement.- Chapter 2: Marxism as Narrative World-Building Method: New Weird Fiction and Capitalist Crisis in China Miéville’s Bas-Lag Trilogy.- Chapter 3: The Afterlives of Slavery: Spectres of the Antebellum in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland.- Chapter 4: Challenging Cultural Studies Through Dystopia: Catatonic Cultural Dominant in Noon’s Falling Out of Cars and McCormack’s Notes from a Coma.- Chapter 5: Extrapolation and Social Reproduction: Anne Charnock’s Dreams Before the Start of Time and Bina Shah’s Before She Sleep.- Chapter 6: Conclusion: New Horizons for a Marxist Theory of Speculative Fiction.

Tomás Vergara completed his Ph.D. in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He is a lecturer in English at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile. His research interests are focused on speculative fiction, Marxist literary criticism and the environmental humanities. This interest ranges from early forms of science fiction and the Gothic in Victorian literature to the dystopian imaginaries of cyberpunk in Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, and the radical alterity of China Miéville’s New Weird fiction attempting to weaponize the fantastic to revitalise the imaginary of revolution. The particular focus on speculative fiction is a consequence of this broader interest in the fantastic. Tomás has published an article on Jeff Noon’s Falling out of Cars in the C21 Literature journal.