"After the Future Went Away"- The Dystopianism and Current Trends in Modern Speculative British Fiction

• Thesis title in English: "After the Future Went Away"- The Dystopianism and Current Trends in Modern Speculative British Fiction
• Key words: Future,Futurism,Dystopia,Current,contemporary,Modern ,Speculative Fiction,British
• English key words: Future,Futurism,Dystopia,Current,contemporary,Modern ,Speculative Fiction,British
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2014/2015
• Thesis type: Bachelor's thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: Colin Steele Clark, M.A.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 10.06.2015
• Date of assignment: 11.06.2015
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 11.04.2016
• Date and time of defence: 20.06.2016 00:00
• Date of electronic submission: 22.05.2016
• Date of proceeded defence: 20.06.2016
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: Mgr. Pavla Veselá, Ph.D.

Guidelines

Contemporary British Speculative Fiction, including Science Fiction and its subgenres, is concerned with a number of traditional themes: the abuse of power by elites( elected or otherwise)and the rise of technocracy; the dramatic loss of individual privacy and freedom due to technological innovations and the commensurate loss of individual agency in the face of the manipulation of political institutions, media organs and information channels ;and the widespread communication of asocial, even anti-social values intended to atomise society.Recent literature such as that of Ken MacLeod,Ian (M) Banks,Charles Stross,Adam Roberts and Chris Beckett et al exemplifies the concerns with alternative social spaces and modes of expression, reiterating the need for the individual to resist new forms of totalitarianism and to ludically engage with social forms which cannot be understood or constructively engaged with by conventional routes. This thesis explores the development of new thematic freight in the stated authors, expecially in novels like MacLeod's Intrusion(2012),Banks' Player of Games,Stross's Halting State, Roberts' New Model Army and Beckett's Dark Eden. After an analysis of the thematic constituents, this thesis then explores the political and social ramifications and speculates upon the directions modern British Fiction may be moving in as a result.

References

1)Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian ImaginationPaperback2003
by Tom Moylan (Editor), Raffaella Baccolini (Editor)
2)Extreme Metaphors
by J.G Ballard (Author), Simon Sellars (Editor), Dan O'Hara (Editor)

3)Orwell's Victory – 2002 by Christopher Hitchens

4) Orwell:The Age's Adversary- Patrick Reilly

5)The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction(various)

6) Speculations on Speculation: Theories of Science Fiction Paperback – 2004 by Matthew Candelaria (Editor)
7)Claeys, Gregory: 'The origins of dystopia: Wells, Huxley and Orwell' The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature. Claeys, Gregory (ed.) [Cambridge; New York] , p.107-132. (Literature Online)

8)Kellner, Douglas: 'From 1984 to One-Dimensional Man: Critical Reflections on Orwell and Marcuse' (https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/from1984toonedimensional.pdf)

9)Huxley, Aldous: 'Brave New World Revisited'

10)Huxley, Aldous: 'Ends and Menas' (Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/endsandmeans035237mbp)

11)Shklar, Judith N.: Nineteen Eighty-Four: Should Political Theory Care? (JSTOR http://www.jstor.org/stable/191627)