Simultaneous worlds

University of Minnesota Press

2015

xxviii, 315 p.

9780816693177

Contents: Introduction / Jennifer Feeley and Sarah Ann Wells -- Intermediality and new media economies. Scan lines: how cyborgs feel / Thomas Lamarre -- What is estranged in science fiction animation? / Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr -- Famous for fifteen minutes: permutations of science fiction short film / Pawe Frelik -- Forms of journey and archive: remaking science fiction in contemporary artist-filmmakers' projects / Jihoon Kim -- Traveling science fiction: translation, adaptation, and interpretation. Media heterotopias and science fiction: transnational workflows and transgalactic spaces in digitally composited ecosystems / Hye Jean Chung -- F. P. 1 and the language of a global science fiction cinema / J. P. Telotte -- Enthiran, the robot: Sujatha, science fiction, and tamil cinema / Swarnavel Eswaran Pillai -- Spatial and temporal alternative modernities in the global south. Polytemporality in Argentine science fiction film: a critique of the homogenous time of historicism and modernity / Joanna Page -- Virtual immigrants: transfigured bodies and transnational spaces in science fiction cinema / Everett Hamner -- Walking dead in avana: Juan of the dead and the zombie film genre / Emily A. Maguire -- Techno-capitalism and techno-desires: the gendered affect of post-cyborgs. Who does the feeling when there's no body there?: critical feminism meets cyborg affect in Oshii Mamoru's Innocence / Sharalyn Orbaugh -- The invention of romance: Park Chan-Wook's I'm a cyborg, but that's okay / Steve Choe -- A disenchanted fantastic: the pathos of objects in Hirokazu Kore-Eda's Air doll / Michelle Cho -- National, international, intergalactic: socialist and post-socialist science fiction cinema. Alien commodities in Soviet science fiction cinema: Aelita, Solaris, and Kin-dza-dza! / Jillian Porter -- Parodies of realism at the margins of science fiction: Jang Jun-Hwan's Save the green planet and Sin Sang-ok's Pulgasari / Travis workman -- Media and messages: blurred visions of nation and science in Death ray on a coral island / Nathaniel Isaacson.

Since the 1927 release of Fritz Lang’s pioneer film Metropolis, science fiction cinema has largely been regarded a Western genre. In Simultaneous Worlds, Jennifer L. Feeley and Sarah Ann Wells showcase authors who challenge this notion by focusing on cinemas and cultures, from Cuba to North Korea, not traditionally associated with science fiction. This collection introduces films about a metal-eating monster who helps peasants overthrow an exploitative court, an inflatable sex doll who comes to life, a desert planet where matchsticks are more valuable than money, and more. Simultaneous Worlds is the first volume to bring a transnational, interdisciplinary lens to science fiction cinema. Encountering some of the best emerging and established voices in the field, readers will become immersed in discussions of well-known works such as the Ghost in the Shell franchise and Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 alongside lesser-known but equally fascinating works by African, Asian, European, and South American filmmakers. Divided into five parts that cover theoretical concerns such as new media economies, translation, the Global South, cyborgs, and socialist and postsocialist cinema, these essays trace cinema’s role in imagining global communities and power struggles. Considering both individual films and the broader networks of production, distribution, and exhibition, Simultaneous Worlds illustrates how film industries across the globe take part in visualizing the perils of globalization and technological modernity. Ultimately, this book opens new ways of thinking about world cinema and our understanding of the world at large.

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