Dorko Suvin DEFINED BY A HOLLOW ESSAYS ON UTOPIA, SCIENCE FICTION AND POLITICAL EPISTEMOLOGY PETER LANG Oxford· Bern· Berlin • Bruxelles • Frankfurt am Main · New York· Wien Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http:/ /dnb.d-nb.de. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Suvin, Dorko, 1930Defined by a hollow : essays on utopia, science fiction and political epistemology I Dorko Suvin. p. em. - (Ralahine utopian studies ; v. 6) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-03911-403-0 (alk. paper) 1. Utopias in literature. 2. Science fiction-History and criticism. 3. Dystopias in literature. I. Title. PN56.U8S86 2010 809'.93372-dc22 2010005219 Cover image: lnterieur by Miljenko Stancic (1971). oil, 81cm x 65cm, in the possession of Dorko Suvin, reproduced by kind permission of Melita Stancic and Ivan P. Stancic, Zagreb. ISSN 1661-5875 ISBN 978-3-0391 1-403-0 © Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, Bern 201 0 Hochfeldstrasse 32, CH-30 12 Bern, Switzerland
[email protected], www.peterlang.com, www.peterlang.net All rights reserved. All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming. and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. Printed in Germany Contents Dedication ix Seven Citations from Rimbaud and Brecht xi Acknowledgements xiii Phillip E. Wegner Preface: Emerging from the Flood in Which We Are Sinking: Or, Reading with Darko Suvin (Again) Introduction 2008: On Hollows, or an Alarmed Door xv 1 Chapter 1 Defining the Literary Genre of Utopia: Some Historical Semantics, Some Genology, a Proposal, and a Plea (1973) 17 Chapter 2 “Utopian” and “Scientific”: Two Attributes for Socialism from Engels (1976) 49 Chapter 3 Science Fiction and the Novum (1977) 67 Chapter 4 Poems of Doubt and Hope 1983–1988 93 vi Chapter 5 Locus, Horizon, and Orientation: The Concept of Possible Worlds as a Key to Utopian Studies (1989) 111 Chapter 6 On William Gibson and Cyberpunk SF (1989–1991) 137 Chapter 7 The Doldrums: Eight Nasty Poems of 1989–1999 157 Chapter 8 Where Are We? How Did We Get Here? Is There Any Way Out? Or, News from th