Suicide and Contemporary Science Fiction

Suicide and Contemporary Science Fiction examines the fascination with suicidal crises evident in a range of science fiction. Carlos Gutiérrez-Jones argues that the theme of creative self-destruction is invoked by H. G. Wells as a means of negotiating Victorian anxieties regarding evolutionary theory, by Stanislaw Lem as he wrestles with the prospect of nuclear self-destruction at the dawn of the space age, by William Gibson as he considers the development of artificial intelligence, by Christopher Nolan as he explores the cybernetic colonization of the unconscious, by Rian Johnson as he links aspects of video gaming to the neoliberal militarization of institutions, and by Margaret Atwood as she considers impending ecological disaster and the rise of bioterrorism. These authors often depict such scientific and technological changes in a fashion that requires the central characters to transform themselves in hopes of remaining relevant in a radically altered environment.

1. Living to wonder: Darwin and H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau; 2. Stranded contacts: the transformative potential of grief in Stanislaw Lem's Solaris; 3. Stealing kinship: William Gibson's Neuromancer and artificial intelligence; 4. Escaping one's self: narcissism and cycles of violence in Inception and Looper; 5. Environmental adaptation: creative apocalypse in Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam trilogy.

Carl Gutiérrez-Jones is Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research interests include American studies, contemporary fiction, critical race studies, the literature of human rights, and science fiction. Gutiérrez-Jones is the author of Critical Race Narratives: A Study of Race, Rhetoric, and Injury and Rethinking the Borderlands: Between Chicano Narrative and Legal Discourse, as well as several co-edited volumes and numerous articles on literature, film, legal studies and cultural theory.