1994/03/01 by Roger Luckhurst
Physics and Astronomy · Arts and Humanities · #Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life #Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction
paper · doi:10.1525/sfs.21.1.0035
One notable element of SF criticism is the constant repetition of pronouncements suggesting the impending death of the genre. From academ¬ic criticism to magazine columns, the threat of the death of SF is a persistent motif. The polemical proposal of this article is that these panic narratives are not attempting to arrest this death, but in fact desire nothing else. SF is ecstatic at the prospect of its own death. This is argued by attending to the way in which SF “legitimates” itself according to criteria derived from “high” art. In accepting these criteria SF accepts the equation of the generic with the “low,” and thus must proceed to “kill” itself in order to be con¬sidered legitimate literature. In the three modes of legitimation that are considered, a particular emphasis is given to narratives of the history of SF which posit some kind of prior mythic moment of SF as undifferentiated from the “mainstream” of Literature. In that the prospect of death promises a return to that state, the desire of SF is to “restore an earlier state of things.” This in fact proves to be the exact definition Freud accords to the death drive. The article proposes, then, to follow the curious logic of the detours that constitute the death drive of SF. (RL)