PHD, Kent State University, 2012, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English

This dissertation situates the emergence of the science fiction literary genre in the biology of the human brain and its evolved cognitive abilities and it specifically investigates the fiction of three renowned, twentieth-century writers—Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and William Gibson—published between 1940 and 1988. While grounded in literary history, this dissertation is an interdisciplinary project that also draws on neuroscientific topics and science and technology studies. Beginning with what I call a cognitive approach to science fiction, I argue that a combination of effects—the brain's adaptation for narrative and imagination, humanity's co-evolution with technology, and technology's rapid and largely unanticipated change—led to the emergence of science fiction in the early part of the twentieth century. While this approach to the origins of the science fiction genre is new, I demonstrate that its functional aspects are rooted in the ideas of the genre's arguably most influential editors: Hugo Gernsback and John W. Campbell, Jr. Unlike the majority of scholarly discussions and critiques on Asimov's, Dick's, and Gibson's fictions, I examine their work from a perspective that emphasizes the brain's physicality over the psychology of mind by deploying my cognitive approach. In the chapter on Asimov's fiction, I argue that while many of his works give prominence to robots, these fictions are primarily about their human counterparts and the human brain. I argue in the chapter on Dick that while he emphasizes the centrality of the human brain to our recreation and experience of reality within our consciousness, he vacillates between the good and ill of technology's influence on our realization of the self and our empathy for others. In the chapter on Gibson's writing, I argue that while he focuses on the fetishistic technologies of computer hacking, he carefully constructs cyberspace as a representation projected and perceived interactively within the human brai (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Donald Hassler M (Committee Chair); Tammy Clewell (Committee Member); Kevin Floyd (Committee Member); Eric Mintz M (Committee Member); Arvind Bansal (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science; Evolution and Development; Literature; Technology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, Spanish and Portuguese

Gay Chicano authors have been criticized for not forming the same type of strong literary identity and community as their Chicana feminist counterparts, a counterpublic that has given voice not only to themselves as authors, but also to countless readers who see themselves reflected in their texts. One of the strengths of the Chicana feminist movement is that they have not only produced their own works, but have made sense of them as well, creating a female-to-female tradition that was previously lacking. Instead of merely reiterating that gay Chicano authors have not formed this community and common identity, this dissertation instead turns the conversation toward the reader. Specifically, I move from how authors make sense of their texts and form community, to how readers may make sense of texts, and finally, to how readers form community. I limit this conversation to three authors in particular—Alex Espinoza, Rigoberto Gonzalez, and Manuel Munoz—whom I label the second generation of gay Chicano writers. In Gonzalez, I combine the cognitive study of empathy and sympathy to examine how he constructs affective planes that pull the reader into feeling for and with the characters that he draws. I also further elaborate on what the real world consequences of this affective union—existing between character and audience—may be. In Munoz, I consider how, through the destabilization of the narrator position, the author constructs storyworlds that first pull the reader in, and then push them out of the narrative in a search for closure. Here, I theorize that he forces the reader to mind read his narrators in order to discern their true intentions. In Espinoza, I explore the typification of Latino/a literature in the marketplace and how it has become tied to magical realism. Here, I posit that Espinoza has created a magic realized novel, one that presents itself as something magical realist, but systemically discredits the notion of magic throughout the work. I use co (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Ignacio Corona (Advisor); Frederick Aldama (Committee Member); Fernando Unzueta (Committee Member) Subjects: American Literature; Glbt Studies; Hispanic American Studies; Literature; Rhetoric; Web Studies