Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me,published in 2019,depicts the parallel world of London in 1982,when artificial intelligence field was well beyond our current level of development.After Britain’s defeat in the Falkland...Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me,published in 2019,depicts the parallel world of London in 1982,when artificial intelligence field was well beyond our current level of development.After Britain’s defeat in the Falklands War,Tony Benn was elected Prime Minister.And Alan Turing,the father of artificial intelligence,did not commit suicide.The storyline is full of intertextual expressions,with the setting beyond the British Isles and the narrative structure abandoning the coherence in the traditional novel in favour of a fragmented feature that closely integrates the individual with the society and the history.The paper analyses McEwan’s textual presentation of Britain’s post-World War II history from three perspectives:textual truth,historical fiction,and historical reflection,in the context of the New Historicism,and explores how McEwan approaches the deconstruction of power discourses and ideologies.This paper aims to achieve reflection on the past,concern for the present and early warning for the future under textuality of histories and historicity of text.展开更多
From inventing cutting-edge technology to designing ideal society,science fiction has always been considered as a literature of future.With the introduction of historical dimension,can science fiction provide us a new...From inventing cutting-edge technology to designing ideal society,science fiction has always been considered as a literature of future.With the introduction of historical dimension,can science fiction provide us a new perspective to speculate on the future?In 2004,Qian Lifang's debut novel The Will of Heaven(Tianyi),known as the representative of contemporary Chinese"historical science fiction"won both reputation and market.Her second novel Mandate of Heaven(Tianming)was published seven years later.Compared to the tremendous success of the former,it has received less attention.In existing scholarship,neither The Will of Heaven nor Mandate of Heaven has never been studied and analysed in depth whereas the concept of"historical science fiction"remains ambiguous.Taking Mandate of Heaven as an example,this paper will first discuss the generic problem of"historical science fiction"by comparing it with"alternate history."Based on this,it continues to exam how the science fiction element is incorporated into Qian's narrative with the aid of"time travel"and"multiverse"as narrative device.Finally,the paper will examine the conceptual experiment of"Mandate of Heaven"embodied by three characters in the book,comparing different views on the compatibility between free will and determinism.The paper concludes that"historical science fiction"is a re-invention of history.Its value lies not in defining a new genre,but in the possibility offered to readers to reflect on the dialectical relationship between fiction and history.展开更多
By turns brutal and beautiful,Carolina de Robertis's 2019 novel Cantoras explores twelve years of violent Uruguayan dictatorship where five women of different ages,social,economic,and familial circumstances are ye...By turns brutal and beautiful,Carolina de Robertis's 2019 novel Cantoras explores twelve years of violent Uruguayan dictatorship where five women of different ages,social,economic,and familial circumstances are yet all equally affected by misogyny,homophobia,and political repression.The women come together to create a haven of freedom wherein to navigate their sexuality without being criminalized,in the middle of a place where freedom for a better future seems to belong to another bohemian era of dreams.Pieced together from the real-life oral narratives and testimonies of hundreds,lost or silenced in the mainstream din,the novel brings to life a portrait of queer love and forgotten history unlike any other.This essay aims a close reading of the socio-political environment of the novel from dictatorship to the revolution which makes the journey that these women take from social isolation to widespread acceptance,their achievements,losses,and resilience shine all the more.展开更多
文摘Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me,published in 2019,depicts the parallel world of London in 1982,when artificial intelligence field was well beyond our current level of development.After Britain’s defeat in the Falklands War,Tony Benn was elected Prime Minister.And Alan Turing,the father of artificial intelligence,did not commit suicide.The storyline is full of intertextual expressions,with the setting beyond the British Isles and the narrative structure abandoning the coherence in the traditional novel in favour of a fragmented feature that closely integrates the individual with the society and the history.The paper analyses McEwan’s textual presentation of Britain’s post-World War II history from three perspectives:textual truth,historical fiction,and historical reflection,in the context of the New Historicism,and explores how McEwan approaches the deconstruction of power discourses and ideologies.This paper aims to achieve reflection on the past,concern for the present and early warning for the future under textuality of histories and historicity of text.
文摘From inventing cutting-edge technology to designing ideal society,science fiction has always been considered as a literature of future.With the introduction of historical dimension,can science fiction provide us a new perspective to speculate on the future?In 2004,Qian Lifang's debut novel The Will of Heaven(Tianyi),known as the representative of contemporary Chinese"historical science fiction"won both reputation and market.Her second novel Mandate of Heaven(Tianming)was published seven years later.Compared to the tremendous success of the former,it has received less attention.In existing scholarship,neither The Will of Heaven nor Mandate of Heaven has never been studied and analysed in depth whereas the concept of"historical science fiction"remains ambiguous.Taking Mandate of Heaven as an example,this paper will first discuss the generic problem of"historical science fiction"by comparing it with"alternate history."Based on this,it continues to exam how the science fiction element is incorporated into Qian's narrative with the aid of"time travel"and"multiverse"as narrative device.Finally,the paper will examine the conceptual experiment of"Mandate of Heaven"embodied by three characters in the book,comparing different views on the compatibility between free will and determinism.The paper concludes that"historical science fiction"is a re-invention of history.Its value lies not in defining a new genre,but in the possibility offered to readers to reflect on the dialectical relationship between fiction and history.
文摘By turns brutal and beautiful,Carolina de Robertis's 2019 novel Cantoras explores twelve years of violent Uruguayan dictatorship where five women of different ages,social,economic,and familial circumstances are yet all equally affected by misogyny,homophobia,and political repression.The women come together to create a haven of freedom wherein to navigate their sexuality without being criminalized,in the middle of a place where freedom for a better future seems to belong to another bohemian era of dreams.Pieced together from the real-life oral narratives and testimonies of hundreds,lost or silenced in the mainstream din,the novel brings to life a portrait of queer love and forgotten history unlike any other.This essay aims a close reading of the socio-political environment of the novel from dictatorship to the revolution which makes the journey that these women take from social isolation to widespread acceptance,their achievements,losses,and resilience shine all the more.
