Gary Westfahl, a professor emeritus at the University of La Verne, California, has authored, edited, or co-edited 35 books about science fiction and fantasy, and has written hundreds of articles and reviews. In 2003, he received the Science Fiction Research Association's Pilgrim Award for his lifetime contributions to science fiction and fantasy scholarship. George Slusser is a professor emeritus of comparative literature at the University of California, Riverside. The longtime curator of the famed Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, he also earned the Pilgrim Award for his numerous scholarly books.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Science Fiction at the Crossroads of Two Cultures

GARY WESTFAHL

I. OVERVIEWS: SCIENCE FICTION IN THE CONTEXT OF TWO CULTURES

1. Science Fiction and the Two Cultures: Reflections after the Snow-Leavis Controversy

CARL FREEDMAN

2. Science Fiction, Mediating Agent between C.P. Snow's Two Cultures: A Historical Interpretation

BRADFORD LYAU

3. Fighting Out of Context: Culture Wars Within and Without Science Fiction, from Snow to Sokal

HOWARD V. HENDRIX

4. A Tale of Two Cultures: Science Studies and Science Fiction

STEPHEN POTTS

5. The Rich and the Poor: Science Fiction and the Other Two Cultures

GARY WESTFAHL

6. The Science of Fiction and the Fiction of Science: A Storytelling Animal in an Inhospitable World

FRANK MCCONNELL

7. Dimorphs and Doubles: J. D. Bernal's "Two Cultures" and the Transhuman Promise

GEORGE SLUSSER

II. CASE STUDIES: SCIENCE FICTION AS AN EXPRESSION OF TWO CULTURES

8. Discontinuity: Spaceships at the Abyss

CAROL MACKAY and KIRK HAMPTON

9. Gregory Benford's Against Infinity and the Literary, Historical and Geometric Formation of the Encyclopedic Circle of Knowledge

PEKKA KUUSISTO

10. Utopia and Utopianism in the Life, Work, and Thought of H. G. Wells

JOHN S. PARTINGTON

11. The Alien Eye: Imperialism and Otherness in H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon

GARETH DAVIES-MORRIS

12. Killer Robots, Laws of Robotics, and Pernicious Humans

GEORGE ATKINS

13. Philip K. Dick's Conversion Narrative

NOAH MASS

14. The Terror of Nature Not Understood: Science, Mysticism, and the Unknowable in Don DeLillo's >

JAKE JAKAITIS

15. When the Caesura Ceases: Two Romanian Authors Gauge the Place of Writers in the Age of Computers

SHARON D. KING

16. A Creature of Double Vision

GREGORY BENFORD
Afterword: Science Fiction and the Playing Fields of Eaton

GARY WESTFAHL
Bibliography of Works Related to Science Fiction and the Two Cultures Debate
Bibliography of Other Works Cited in the Text
About the Contributors
Index