Race in American Science Fiction

Noting that science fiction is characterized by an investment in the proliferation of racial difference, Isiah Lavender III argues that racial alterity is fundamental to the genre's narrative strategy. Race in American Science Fiction offers a systematic classification of ways that race appears and how it is silenced in science fiction, while developing a critical vocabulary designed to focus attention on often-overlooked racial implications. These focused readings of science fiction contextualize race within the genre's better-known master narratives and agendas. Authors discussed include Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, and Ursula K. Le Guin, among many others.

"Critically ambitious.... Isiah Lavender spurs a direct conversation about race and racism in science fiction." --De Witt Douglas Kilgore, author of Astrofuturism Indiana University Press Indiana University Press Indiana University Press

Isiah Lavender III is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Central Arkansas.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Mapping the Blackground

1. Racing Science Fiction

2. Meta-slavery

3. Jim Crow Extrapolations

4. Ailments of Race

5. Ethnoscapes

6. Technologically Derived Ethnicities

Epilogue: Science Fictioning Race

Notes

Bibliography

Index