Infertility in science fiction

Abstract

This dissertation attempts a comprehensive and historical poetics of infertility in science fiction through a process of thematic and narratological typologisation, cross verifying various aspects of science in the genre with current and possible future trends. This work is particularly opportune in the contemporary critical climate, with an upsurge of critical attention in the genre in the midst of a renewed interest in interdisciplinarity, and with science fiction studies becoming increasingly present on the academic curriculum. The intersection of science fiction and medicine is vast and therefore an inescapably narrowing approach has been adopted, focussing almost exclusively on aspects of the genre that commingle infertility with science fiction, using thematic and narratological approaches. This methodology is indicative in obtaining a representative sample of the many attributes that are almost universally represented in the wider genre: the postulation of a novum and the resulting threat (such as infertility in the case of this dissertation, on an individual or racial scope) or adventure that is successfully dealt with by dint of team effort, loyalty, courage and leadership. While some of these fictional tropes and recycled devices may appear trite and cliched, authors continue to create innovative, intertextual and invigorating stories that challenge the reader's very ability to suspend disbelief. That much was never in doubt but the dissertation attempts to draw attention also to the further implications of this in literary studies generally and science fiction studies more particularly. The commonest trope that emerges from these narratives is that of the cautionary tale, and of how the excessive and Frankensteinian desire to wrest nature's secrets, suggests that hubris must meet tragedy. Yet another trope that has emerged is that of the almost fairy tale happy ending. Both of these tropes are expected by habitual SF readers in this inherently interdisciplinary genre which routinely and debonairly goes where no man has gone before.