Mary Cummins (University of California - Riverside)
mary@****.com (Log-in to reveal)

Much scholarship has been produced on the foundational works of science fiction and speculative fiction that address feminist themes, such as those by Margaret Cavendish, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Ursula K. LeGuin, James Tiptree, Jr., Joanna Russ, Marge Piercy, Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, et al., and these texts continue to influence more recent contributions. This session will ask, in what ways do science fiction and speculative novels of the past 24 years borrow from, build upon, expand, and / or challenge earlier feminist science fiction and speculative texts? More broadly, how do more recent novels address themes of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, migration, ability, religion, ageism, bodily autonomy, reproduction, parenting, labor, economics, power, violence, technology, environmental destruction, or other aspects that can be considered through the lenses of feminist and gender theories?

Much scholarship has been produced on the foundational works of science fiction and speculative fiction that address feminist themes, such as those by Margaret Cavendish, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Ursula K. LeGuin, James Tiptree, Jr., Joanna Russ, Marge Piercy, Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, et al., and these texts continue to influence more recent contributions to SF and speculative fiction. For example, in the past couple of decades, one may well have lost count of the number of novels whose editorial reviews have declared them to be “the heir to The Handmaid’s Tale.”

This session will ask, in what ways do science fiction and speculative novels of the past 24 years borrow from, build upon, expand, and / or challenge earlier feminist science fiction and speculative texts? More broadly, how do more recent novels address themes of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, migration, ability, religion, ageism, bodily autonomy, reproduction, parenting, labor, economics, power, violence, technology, environmental destruction and equity, or other aspects that can be considered through the lenses of feminist and gender theories?

Submissions might consider recent contributions by authors such as Naomi Alderman, Alexandra Almeida, Madeline Ashby, Virginia Bergin, Jessamine Chan, Charlotte Nicole Davis, Christina Dalcher, Louise Erdrich, Sarah Hall, Nalo Hopkinson, Kameron Hurley, N.K. Jemisin, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Laura Lam, Ann Leckie, Sophie Mackintosh, Jennie Melamed, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Annalee Newitz, Nnedi Okorafor, Louise O’Neill, Joanne Ramos, Sabrina Vourvoulias, Martha Wells, Colleen Winter, or Leni Zumas, among many others -- as well as, of course, the actual sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, published in 2019.