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Artificial intelligence (AI), the most widespread technological term, has become an integral part of human daily life. People are becoming increasingly dependent on AI-powered devices; thus, it is now essential to have a legal framework to oversee artificial intelligence's various uses and legal peculiarities. As artificial intelligence has entered all areas of life and into various sectors, which requires examining in detail the legal nature of artificial intelligence, determining the laws that must be applied to it, and identifying the people or entities responsible for it to determine the scope of their responsibilities for the resulting damages that may be caused to others as a result of the use of intelligence. Artificial, this research aimed to examine the adequacy of the legal rules in Jordanian legislation regulating the provisions of artificial intelligence in light of the diversity of its applications and its different legal nature. The research is divided into two chapters. The first chapter presents the concept of artificial intelligence, and the second chapter discusses the legal liability of artificial intelligence. The results of the research revealed that the Jordanian legislator did not specify the legal nature of the artificial intelligence and contented himself with stipulating it in separate texts, Legal liability resulting from utilizing artificial intelligence systems can be challenged under regulations of the defect in manufacturing, responsibility for guarding things, and the distinction between responsibilities due to the degree of independence and intelligence of artificial intelligence, In determining the liability of artificial intelligence, the legislator should consider the types of artificial intelligence systems, their different capabilities, and their independence from humans, The process of enacting special laws regulating all aspects of artificial intelligence must be expedited. This law should be characterized by flexibility that enables it to keep pace with and rapid development witnessed in this field.

This study examines how members of the public frame artificial intelligence (AI) along with how news use predicts “frames in mind” for AI. The study also tests whether news use, science fiction viewing, and discussing technology influence attitudes toward AI independently and in conjunction with one another. The analyses use data from a nationally representative online panel survey. Respondents invoked social progress and Pandora’s box frames for AI, and technology news use predicted mentioning each frame. Use of technology news also predicted change in support for AI, while science fiction viewing and discussing technology were conditionally related to such change.

This paper embarks on a methodical exploration of TVTropes.org, a comprehensive crowd-sourced wiki that documents storytelling conventions across various forms of media, with a special focus on representations of artificial intelligence and future scenarios. The study delineates the multifaceted nature of the platform, asserting that its offerings extend beyond mere television tropes, and explores its potent applicability for futurists and scholars. Through the strategic application of web scraping and data analysis, this research quantifies diverse aspects of science fiction media and the embedded tropes therein. The paper underscores the pivotal role of tropes in shaping societal perceptions and influencing discourse, particularly in the realm of futuristic thinking, using instances such as the impact of "The Terminator" franchise on military strategic thinking as a case study. Furthermore, the research engages in a quantitative analysis of trope density and frequency within science fiction works, offering a nuanced understanding and uncovering patterns in storytelling conventions. This study thus offers a foundational framework for understanding, categorizing, and analyzing the influential images of the future that permeate today's media environment, thereby providing a valuable resource for futurists, researchers, and media scholars in their respective endeavors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of futures studies has done little work on analysis of films and movies, with the exception of the science fiction genre. There has been little attempt to wrestle with and analyze other film genres, integrating such analyses into futures studies. This article makes an attempt at bridging that gap by analyzing the 2018 Palme d'Or winning film Shoplifters by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda. In the article, we examine the film as a signal of transformation in the Japanese family by comparing this new form of the family to the Japanese family in the past. Using Shoplifters as a guiding post, I contextualize the transformations portrayed in the film with research on and trends in Japanese society. By using Shoplifters, I show how we can use films as guiding posts and as valuable sources of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study in media practice provides insights on video production for holographic prism projection, which has become more accessible as smart flat screens have become more available. The study reflects on the experiences of producing, installing and viewing a documentary video projected via holographic prism, titled 'FarNearFutureNow.' Engaging the participation of Extinction Rebellion (XR) members, this university-funded production included recording and combining interview footage with energy policy texts in the visual style of the hologram scene from Star Wars, the 1977 science-fiction film. With viewer co-experience, environmental politics and legacies of colonialism in mind, we produced a 5-minute video and prism projection system for public exhibition. FarNearFutureNow was produced through collective processes of gathering, assembling, reviewing, storyboarding, scripting and editing interview footage and other recordings as well as testing and fabricating installation materials. These production processes enabled us to understand the affordances of creative darkness in holographic production for disassociating and recombining visual elements. The hologram's disassociated focus on a single object proved useful in drawing audience attention and for assembling non-fiction elements in sequences referencing popular fiction. It is also useful for showing radically different visual scales in sequence, and for simultaneously juxtaposing audio and visual scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science fiction claims Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a progenitor on the basis of its extrapolation from speculations by Erasmus Darwin and others about the nature and origins of life. An equally strong narrative thread in the novel about extraordinary states of mind is usually taken as evidence of its grounding in supernatural and gothic fiction. The novel applies the same materialist assumptions and reasoned approach to dreaming, however, that it uses to explore biological science. Reading it in the context, first, of David Hartley's eighteenth-century Observations on Man and, second, of contemporary studies of the dreaming brain, we can see that Frankenstein is also science fiction of a different sort than usually supposed, a thought experiment about states of consciousness and unconsciousness and the strange experiences that arise from disrupting the boundary between sleep and waking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the winner of the 2022 Speculative Fictions and Cultures of Science Book Award, Nicole Starosielski's "Media Hot and Cold," which offers a groundbreaking examination of the intersections between popular culture, technology, and postwar U.S. society. Topics discussed include the exploration of motherhood in science fiction, the need for critical analysis of science fiction and fantasy comics, and the upcoming conference on graphic/visual science fiction.

In Priya Sarukkai Chabria's science-fiction novel Clone (2019), the central character Clone 14/54/G is a cyborg replica of her Original, named Aa-Aa, an incarcerated dissident writer who met a violent death just before delivering a potentially incendiary public address. Against her programming, the mutant Clone experiences flashbacks (or "visitations") of her Original's past life and fictional oeuvre, which makes it possible for her to revisit disparate temporalities of Indian history. While many existing interventions attempt to extend or apply the familiar conventions of postcolonial analysis to works of postcolonial science fiction, this essay sets out to ask rather how the emergence of the latter serves to both reconfigure and reclaim the affective stakes of an anti-imperialist politics that avoids a straightforward historical determinism. By reading Chabria's sf novel through affective articulations of spectrality and queer temporality, I present the novel as a form of narrative crypt that provides a phantasmal space for the spectral return of those who have been silenced or erased from history, not only as a consequence of their gender, race, and class, but also because of their inability or refusal to comply with the normative temporal rhythms of the society in which they live. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren (1975) moves through different genres and styles of literature in much the same way that Walter Benjamin's flaneur moves through the spaces of the city. Delany as a writer makes contact with any number of other traditions outside of science fiction, but he expresses no radical desire to revolutionize sf or move it into mainstream literature. Delany does not assimilate or synthesize outside influences into his work so much as he encounters them. In Starboard Wine (1984), his book of sf criticism, Delany defines "encounter" in literature as the interpretation of a text associated with one genre through the reading protocols associated with another. I argue that "encounter" is analogous to "contact," a concept from Delany's Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (1999) that relates to the real, physical interaction of individuals in an urban environment. Nowhere is this convergence of literary encounter and urban contact clearer than in his novel, Dhalgren. Dhalgren uses the city as a conceptual framework for encounters among a diverse array of influences including myth, poetry, autobiography, and literary modernism. These types of encounters are also plentiful in Delany's earlier work, but Dhalgren pushes them to a point where even sf itself is decentered and becomes just one more thing to be met in the space of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconsiders Samuel R. Delany's theory of science fiction as a form of language in order to develop the notion that science fiction is a method of making meaning and reading texts. Three stories by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, "The Aleph," "The Library of Babel," and "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," are read as science fiction to demonstrate how the method functions. Borges's ambiguous relationship with science fiction during his lifetime is well-documented, but no previous study of Borges as a science-fiction writer exists in English. The notion of science fiction as a way of reading enables a reading that treats the elements of textual playfulness that make Borges's texts so beloved throughout literary studies as science fictional, because they encourage the reader to reconstruct an alternate world around the text and create a comprehensive theory of how that world works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1992, Stephenson described a type of metaverse in his science fiction novel Snow Crash. Through his imagination, Stephenson is said to have directly influenced the makers of Google Earth, and, more recently, Silicon Valley’s “Metaverse”. In addition, there was a spate of literature published 15–20 years ago, related to metaverse concepts with the introduction of Second Life in June 2003 by Linden Labs. Many users experienced virtual spaces, shopped with virtual currency (Linden dollar, L ${\$}$), and even frequented virtual storefronts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese science fiction (sci-fi) draws nutrition from traditional Chinese culture to achieve a modern transformation and promote the development of the national narrative in Chinese sci-fi. There are three ways to realise the transformation. First, adapt and reproduce classic stories, myths, legends and history. By embracing modernity, this unlocks the connections between traditional culture and modern technology, and thus acquires supportive force for modern life. Second, reconstruct history by imagining new routes of technological evolution and thus open up new possibilities for history. By considering contemporary realities, this answers the contemporary call for a more advanced culture. Third, use the national spirit as the soul of Chinese sci-fi. When providing Chinese wisdom and solutions to global challenges, we should balance the relationship between the global vision and the national characteristics of Chinese sci-fi and develop future-oriented national characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science fiction takes many forms, including academic work that calls on readers to think about social and cultural problems. This paper takes a piece of science fiction, Kirinyaga: A Fable of Utopia, as an example and discusses the conflicts among globalization, modernization and tradition present in the text, thus highlighting the academic meaning of science fiction as a literary form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Just under five years ago it seemed impossible to be able to use a simple and already widespread camera as a reliable monitoring tool for a design engineer. Today, thanks to the giant strides made by technology and IT evolution, this is no longer the case and what once seemed like science fiction is now reality, thanks to the innovative Photomonitoring technique. But how can you obtain reliable information through two simple images? This article illustrates the general principles of Photomonitoring and the main applicability criteria of this method, also through successful application examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Afrofuturism is understood as encompassing critical, narratival, aesthetic, and activist practices that, in the words of Ytasha Womak, "redefine culture and notions of blackness for today and the future." While the Caribbean might seem a natural site for Afrofuturist cultural exploration, until recently, few works of Hispanophone Caribbean literature had been identified as belonging to this subgenre. That situation changed with the publication of Prietopunk: antología de afrofuturismo caribeño (2022), which announces itself as the first Spanish-language anthology of Caribbean Afrofuturism. This article explores the collection's articulation of Afrofuturism through an analysis of four of its stories: Rafael Acevedo's "La orisha 2034 es tremenda máquina," Erick Mota's "En candela con Ochosi," Aníbal Hernández Medina's translation of Junot Díaz's "Monstro," and Gretchen López Ayala's "Crioulo." It argues that these stories present a specifically Caribbean futurism, one that, while it may not center explicitly on Black imaginaries, reveals an Antillean desire to engage the future possible in a way that highlights the importance of African-derived cultural elements, explores the region's complex racial dynamics, and underscores the weight of Caribbean histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of science fiction (SF) in Latin America has been affected concurrently by Northern genre norms and local literary and cultural realities, leading to the development of science fictions unique to the region. Modern genre SF was not imported wholesale to Latin America from the North, nor was it created in a vacuum. So how did the genre transition in Latin America in the 1940s from the relative trough in SF production in the interwar period to the Golden Age of the decades that followed? Adolfo Bioy Casares is perhaps the closest thing we have to an influencer and a bellwether of this moment in genre history. Bioy's ability to juxtapose science and science fictions past and present, to balance plot-driven and experimental writing, and to create new genre hybrids make his work emblematic of this turning point in the evolution of Latin American SF, which I am calling the "Morel hinge." This article considers the theoretical underpinnings of the Morel hinge through an examination of four prologues by Borges and Bioy Casares and illustrates it with a discussion of Bioy's 1944 short story "La trama celeste". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Angélica Gorodischer began publishing in the mid-1960s, establishing a reputation as a writer of speculative and science fiction, as well as of narratives that resist neat categorization. She has also been classified as a feminist writer and as a postcolonial writer. Across genres, Gorodischer's work foregrounds a poetics of storytelling and world-building, often through tales of voyage and discovery. Gorodischer highlights the social aspect of storytelling, implicating listeners in the narrative and offering a critical perspective on the circumstances portrayed. Gorodischer's world-building includes the invented galaxies of science fiction imagination as well as quotidian minutiae of contemporary Argentina. This essay will consider the connections among storytelling, world-building, and translation, drawing on examples from a number of Gorodischer's stories and their translations, among them my own translation of her novel in stories, Trafalgar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay seeks to establish a broader conceptual framework for studying the historical development of Latin American science fiction and its recent turn--in a genre usually focused on other times and worlds--to references to the past and present of Latin American history and culture. Valuable current studies of Latin American science fiction have been devoted primarily to the history of the genre itself and to tropes that have recurred in certain periods of the development of Latin American science fiction, such as cyborgs, androids, and zombies. Few have been devoted to the issues and forces at play in the current rise not only of science fiction in Latin America but of a recognizably Latin American form of science fiction. Through readings focused on the role of history and time in representative Latin American science fictional narratives of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, from the Argentine Juana Manuela Gorriti and the Chilean Jorge Baradit to the Cuban Yoss, the pervasiveness of historicity, the view of indigenous knowledge as proto science (rather than superstition), and a penchant towards dystopias, horror, and the Gothic, are considered as possible defining traits of Latin American science fiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific portrayal of apes at the turn of the twentieth century functioned as a rich space to probe the border between humans and the nonhuman world and to rethink the tenets of evolution. To take up these themes, Nicaraguan author Hernán Robleto (1895-1968), whose theatrical and narrative work was otherwise characterized by a costumbrista realist style, turned to the speculative genres of science fiction and fantasy in his novel Una mujer en la selva (1936). Inspired by the jungle adventure fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs and by the hit Hollywood film King Kong (1933), Robleto's novel offers a surprising fable about a ladina woman who falls in love with a giant ape in Nicaragua's jungled Atlantic coast. The erotic interspecies encounter is ontologically transformative; after the death of her primate lover, the protagonist becomes a legendary ape woman who haunts the social body. Allegorically, the novel deploys the giant ape as a stand-in for the marginalized Afro-descendant peoples of Nicaragua's east coast. The problematic collapse of blackness into the figure of the ape underscores how ladino writers like Robleto struggled to write about Afro-Indigenous populations in realist terms. The abstraction of blackness into the figure of the ape is a racist reification of Black animality, but at the same time, the fantastical interspecies romance in Robleto's novel tentatively advocates for a non-normative model of national coupling grounded in the Atlantic coast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carlos Barragán Castro's literary works skillfully weave together discussions of natural science with a thoughtful exploration of how the science fiction genre can bring about political and social change in twenty-first-century Colombia. In contrast to the prevailing dystopian themes in Western science fiction, Barragán grounds his ideas in the concept of affective posthumanism. In this framework, individual identity becomes intertwined with a mutually beneficial relationship between species, influenced by new scientific and technological developments. His writing delves into ethical and political aspects, infusing the narratives with thought-provoking considerations of ethics, human rights, and justice in a posthuman setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a creative response to the topic of the special issue, "The Aesthetics of Tinnitus", blending reflections on perception and imagination, race and sociality, sci-fi and sound studies via experimental poetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a review of the book "Gender: Two Novellas in Verse" by Anne Harding Woodworth. The book consists of two novellas that explore the concepts of femininity, masculinity, and the limits of categorization. The first novella, "Martin/Martina," tells the story of a person who was thought to be born female but later dressed as male and joined a monastery. The second novella, "Aftermath," is set in a post-apocalyptic world and follows three groups of survivors. The review highlights the use of language and symbolism in the novellas and recommends reading them multiple times to fully appreciate their nuances. [Extracted from the article]

Gülten Dayıoğlu is one of our authors, who has contributed many works to our literature. Gülten Dayıoğlu's science fiction works have become widely read in children's and young adult literature, undergoing multiple printings. One of these works is Işın Çağı Çocukları. One of the most important characteristics of works in the science fiction genre is their ability to derive their narrative from science. In these works, it is essential to carefully examine and use concepts in a way that does not lead to misconceptions in the readers' minds. Conceptual misconceptions can make subsequent learning more difficult or even hinder the learning process. In children's literature, it is considered necessary to identify any conceptual misconceptions and, if present, explain them to the child readers to correct these misconceptions. In this work, analysis of Gülten Dayıoğlu's novel Işın Çağı Çocukları is made in the context of conceptual misconcepiton on scientific concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early twentieth-century coal miners used canaries to detect the presence of poisonous gases underground. Miners treasured canaries for their cheer, partnership, and assistance. This safety practice had largely ended in the United States by the middle of the twentieth century, but the phrase 'canary in a coal mine' took on an extended life as a metaphor, signaling impending disaster in a variety of situations. The metaphor's malleability encouraged the inclusion of caged birds as a plot device. Horror and science fiction films like The Birds, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Arrival, and Bird Box use birds to signal invisible, hard-to-explain risks. The coal mine canary therefore became a sentinel for the most troubling social and political anxieties of each era. It signaled people's worries that they could no longer identify and manage dangers in the modern world, whether those had to do with warfare, the environment, federal surveillance, social media, or epidemics. The birds' use as a warning symbol, though, took miners' beloved, sentient animal and turned it instead into a simple, but powerful tool. The coal mine canary's continued prescence in popular culture also suggests that Americans remain concerned about the viability of new technologies in a rapidly changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studii de Ştiintă şi Cultură is the property of Studii de Stiinta si Cultura and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Studii de Ştiintă şi Cultură is the property of Studii de Stiinta si Cultura and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Estudios de Teoría Literaria is the property of Estudios de Teoria Literaria and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The concept of "smart cities" has gained recognition in the last few years because of the increasing urban population coupled with rise in the number of urban problems. Smart cities - usage of information and communication technology (ICT) to enhance the standard of living, thereby, represents a digital solution for the urban communities that aims for economic growth and sustainability. The present paper offers an overview of this innovative concept. Smart Mobility, Smart Economy, Smart People, Smart Environment, Smart Living and Smart Governance are the six pillars of a smart city. However, the article puts an emphasis on smart governance, while providing a brief description of all the other dimensions. By highlighting some of the benefits and challenges that smart governance offers to urban citizens, it presents the significance of collaboration between different stakeholders including citizens, public institutions and government officials. In conclusion, the study argues smart governance is essential for promoting good governance practices but there is a need to consider the other factors such as social inclusion and basic human rights while adopting this new method in decisionmaking process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Critical Language & Literary Studies / Naqd-i Zabān va Adabīyyāt-i Khārijī is the property of Shahid Beheshti University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Several theorists of racial capitalists have claimed that the mechanism enabling and maintaining this system is the fracturing and isolation of a population. Two recent science fiction novels, L'Invention des corps and Tè mawon , literalize the philosophical concept of the rhizome as developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and Édouard Glissant, respectively, to ask if the connections it produces can counteract a racial capitalist system. The two books experiment with the kinds of connections and relationships created, who and what can be connected, and how they are organized, in order to establish the utility of the rhizome and its limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article situates the potential for intellectual work to be renewed through an enriched engagement with the relationship between indigenous protocols and artificial intelligence (AI). It situates this through a dialectical storytelling of the contradictions that emerge from the relationships between humans and capitalist technologies, played out within higher education. It argues that these have ramifications for our conceptions of AI, and its ways of knowing, doing and being within wider ecosystems. In thinking about how technology reinforces social production inside capitalist institutions like universities, the article seeks to refocus our storytelling around mass intellectuality and generative possibilities for transcending alienating social relations. In so doing, the focus shifts to the potential for weaving new protocols, from existing material and historical experiences of technology, which unfold structurally, culturally and practically within communities. At the heart of this lies the question, what does it mean to live? In a world described against polycrisis, is it possible to tell new social science fictions, as departures towards a new mode of higher learning and intellectual work that seeks to negate, abolish and transcend the world as-is? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes that science fiction (sci-fi), a specific entertainment genre or theme, can facilitate self-transcendence (i.e. moving beyond self-boundaries) by inducing epistemic humility (i.e. awareness of one's epistemic limits accompanied by epistemic openness). Through increasing self-transcendence, sci-fi engagement can further promote prosocial intentions in a real-world context. We conducted three studies with different paradigms to test our hypotheses. Through a retrospective design, Study 1 found that sci-fi (vs. comedy or romance) films were recalled as eliciting stronger self-transcendence. Studies 2a and 2b, using an experimental design, revealed that sci-fi (vs. realistic) narratives induced stronger epistemic humility, and consequently led to heightened self-transcendence. Study 3, extending the findings in the pandemic context through a three-wave longitudinal design, demonstrated that sci-fi engagement within one month predicted the subsequent increase in self-transcendence, which in turn promoted coronavirus disease (COVID)-related prosocial intention over time. The potential of sci-fi to foster self-transcendence and prosociality is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Osmosis (Netflix, 2019) is only the second French television series to be commissioned by Netflix. Set in a near-future Paris and dramatising the final beta-testing and launch of a revolutionary dating application, the programme has frequently been compared to Black Mirror (Channel 4 Television Corporation/Netflix, 2011–19). This article argues that the parallel is unhelpful since Osmosis does not contain the underlying technophobia that characterises the UK series and is largely, though not entirely, optimistic about the implications of artificial intelligence and technological advances for humanity. Nonetheless, the two series do share a common preoccupation with critiquing certain excesses of late capitalism. In its blend of dystopian and utopian elements and allusions to and subversions of Anglophone science-fiction conventions, Osmosis constitutes an original – and unashamedly French – futuristic series whose key characteristic is ambivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical analysis of Netflix's hit show Stranger Things has largely emphasized its nostalgic engagement with 1980s Americana, and particularly that decade's science fiction and horror films. However, trappings of the Gothic in Stranger Things do not merely align it with the twentieth century's recent past; they also function in ways that demonstrate Stranger Things' connection to the more distant past of the Romantic period's Gothic novels. This article extends the Gothic inheritance of Stranger Things beyond 1980s' science fiction horror to the Romantic Gothic novel's investment in the found manuscript, the departure point for examining the use of Dungeons & Dragons in Stranger Things alongside Mary Shelley's use of found manuscripts in Frankenstein and The Last Man. This article reads the found manuscript as a collaboratively produced parergon (a framing device sitting both inside and outside of the text), which works through acts of translation and recreation to bring the past to bear on the present. Through examining Stranger Things' conceptual framing of its alternate dimension, the Upside Down, and the monstrous Demogorgon through Dungeons & Dragons, this article argues that Dungeons & Dragons functions in Stranger Things as a Gothic found manuscript, drawing literary and Gothic pasts into the show's present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we seek to propose a novel solution to the Green Children of Woolpit, a twelfth-century "alien" mystery by approaching the "otherworldly" through a terrestrial, theological lens. In focusing specifically on their otherworldliness, we suggest a congruence between the children's characteristics and the theological threat of early Catharism. When viewed Christologically, the Green Children mystery offers ample opportunity for exotheological discourse, focusing as it does on key Christian theological issues such as Christ's humanity, the Incarnation, and what it means to be human in the Middle Ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sequence of recent science‐fiction films set in the San Francisco Bay Area suggests that Silicon Valley corporations have become a major concern for Hollywood. These films present Silicon Valley capitalism in thrall to a technological experimentation that prompts disastrous outcomes, which the films collectively argue emerges from the corporations' drive for profit and ignorance of the precautionary principle. Yet Hollywood's response to Silicon Valley involves the valorizing of a kinder, less rapacious capitalism than that of Silicon Valley, a position that prevents a thorough critique of a major challenger to its position within our culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My aim in this essay is to isolate and describe the eschatological technophobia that is expressed by many popular films in the genre of science fiction. What I have in mind by this designation is the (irrational) fear of advanced technologies with respect to the conjectured likelihood that autonomous systems and programs will inevitably deliver a negative judgment of humankind. In expressing and/or cultivating this fear, I offer, directors in the genre tend to help themselves to the language and imagery of the Biblical Day of Judgment, especially as it is prophesied and characterized in the Abrahamic religions of the global West. This fear, I maintain, is itself an expression of a deeper anxiety pertaining to the possibility (or likelihood) that the achievements of humankind matter very little, if at all, especially when evaluated on a cosmic scale. Following my critique of several films that rely, uncreatively, on the trope of eschatological technophobia, I turn to a consideration of two relatively recent films in the genre: Christopher Nolan's Interstellar (2014) and Denis Villeneuve's Arrival (2016). From these directors, I suggest, we receive subtler and more thoughtful treatments of the judgments of humankind that superior intelligences are likely to pronounce. What emerges in these two films is the exploratory expression of a religiosity or spirituality that I associate with an updated, epoch-appropriate version of humanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Viewers' responses to Orphan Black (2013–2017), a popular, genetics-themed sci-fi television series, reveal much about public understanding of the ethical challenges associated with genetic science. In this article, we assess how fans of Orphan Black process the bioethical themes that are prominent in the show through an analysis of 182 viewer-created blog posts. Using a mixed methods approach, our findings reveal that Orphan Black 's fans distill the essence of the show down to its characters' fight for autonomy. Furthermore, fan blogs reveal two notable pathways through which this bioethical principle is explored: gender and reproduction. Viewers draw striking connections between the moral problems they observe on screen in Orphan Black and those they see in the real world—both today and in a possible future—particularly as those problems affect women. While existing scholarship acknowledges these themes in the show itself, our approach demonstrates science fiction fans' active participation in meaning-making and bioethical reasoning and offers a novel approach to studying fan-generated content for public understanding of science research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article will critically appraise the extent to which new developments in the fields of reproductive technology are shown to impact female bodily autonomy and reproductive choice in Eva Hoffman's novel The Secret. The Secret pushes its readers towards the more pressing and urgent questions arising from ongoing developments within the field of NRT and human cloning in a neoliberal climate. The novel cautions that, ultimately, the individual right to reproductive choice is never completely free; an awareness of external influences and a consideration of possible repercussions is integral to responsible decision-making in the context of NRT and cloning. However, the novel moves towards a possible reconceptualization of NRTs as part of the evolutionary progress of humankind. In returning to the body and biopolitical figurations, this article sees the novel's protagonist, Iris, and her emergent cyborg identity as a manifestation of Haraway's monstrous cyborg replete with possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to analyze the various thematic and discursive elements by which Luis Noriega’s novel Iménez can be considered a demodystopia. To this end, the four coordinates of the system of signification of any demodystopia are first recognized: demography, biopolitics, science fiction and dystopia, which function as synergies present in the architecture of its meaning and as spaces of hermeneutic realization. In the second part, the characterization of these components in the novel diegesis is developed: demographic phenomenon generating the plot conflict (overpopulation), totalitarianism and deviant uses of biopolitics through coercive methods of manipulation and domination (the system of privileges), novum (the Dome), loss of freedom (conditioning and predestination) and identity alienation of the protagonist (detriment of the self). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Age and Ageing in Contemporary Speculative and Science Fiction" is a book review that discusses the intersection of aging studies and science fiction. The review highlights the collection of essays edited by Sarah Falcus and Maricel Oró-Piqueras, which explores how speculative and science fiction texts encode concerns about age and aging societies. The book covers a range of themes, including genre, immortality, biopower, demographic change, temporalities, and transhumanism. The review acknowledges the book's limitation in focusing primarily on anglophone, white-dominated texts and suggests that future research should consider science fiction from other parts of the world. Overall, the book provides critical insight into how aging concerns are portrayed in science fiction and offers a foundation for further exploration of the topic. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the first Early Researchers' Seminar for Science and Speculative Fiction, which took place at the University of Salamanca in Spain. The seminar featured a series of panels and discussions on various topics related to speculative fiction, including gendered geographies, posthumanism, and contemporary speculative literature. The speakers aimed to deliver accessible talks that catered to a diverse audience, from established researchers to undergraduate students. The seminar provided a welcoming and non-commodified space for the exchange of ideas and fostered discussions on topics such as feminist speculation, posthuman bodies, and the critical potentials of speculative fiction. [Extracted from the article]

"Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw" by Hua Li is a scholarly book that examines science fiction in China from 1976 to 1983. The author explores the political and cultural changes of this period and connects Chinese SF to various factors such as mainstream literary perspectives, domestic politics, changing international relations, and Western SF traditions. The book offers a new interpretation of SF in the post-Mao era and contributes to existing scholarship by discussing the "Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign" in 1983, the lack of critical awareness of ethical problems in SF, the similarities between post-Mao SF and more recent fiction, and the shift of SF writers to higher social classes. This article discusses the development of Chinese SF during the post-Mao era, exploring themes such as Mars exploration, detective thrillers, alien invasions, posthuman conditions, and genetic engineering. It also examines the impact of media convergence on the popularity and dissemination of Chinese SF, suggesting that it is a genre often supported by the government. Overall, this article provides a comprehensive analysis of Chinese SF during this period and is recommended for readers interested in the history of Chinese SF. [Extracted from the article]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the newest technological hype. Although it involves a great diversity of technologies, the disseminated image of AI has been a generic, super-powerful, extremely negative one, at the edge of dystopian, especially in works of science fiction. Recently, following the launch of ChatGPT, one finds an explosion of journalistic and academic publications, some of which reinforce this public imagination. In academia, AI’s risks remain highlighted and even apocalyptic scenarios related to it are taken into consideration. Ethical concerns, then, take on eminently negative connotations, and the much more realistic possible benefits of AIs are under-focused. We highlight in this paper the importance of going beyond the hype and developing multi/interdisciplinary, delimited, realistic, and thoughtful approaches. Employing the collective intelligence embodied in the interaction between researchers from three fields —Computer Science, Linguistics, and Philosophy— we approach a free machine translation tool: Google Translate. Our goal is to show that well-defined, multidisciplinary, technically supported approaches that do not adhere to sensationalist discourse lead us to more epistemically consistent and more thoughtful critical-normative reflections, which would be crucial for advancing the debate on AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This paper aims to study the gendered representations of robots, cyborgs, ginoids, clones, holograms, and female artificial intelligences in science fiction film. It is hypothesized that the sexist stereotypes widely studied in female film characters are perpetuated in female artificial creations in science fiction film. Methodology: A sample of 83 characters was taken from the IMdB database. After their classification, we proceeded to carry out a qualitative analysis on representation, gender roles and stereotypes of the characters. Results: The results obtained confirm that the science fiction genre is intensely masculinized and vertical occupational segregation is the dominant note. In addition, gender roles and stereotypes that are common in other film genres are also replicated in science fiction. Discussion: The representations do not manage to get rid of sexist precepts that are maintained over time as a result of the persistence of a male gaze. Conclusions: This study confirms the need to establish tools that allow women to access a highly masculinized cultural industry as well as the need to carry out a representation of female fictional characters far from the gender stereotypes traditionally associated with women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem-situation addressed in this article stems from the recognition of the increase in literary and audiovisual works that make use of Afrofuturist aesthetics. Our hypothesis focuses on the understanding that Afrofuturism allows addressing social, political and economic issues; therefore, themes such as African culture, history and diaspora, as well as resistance and identity, are highlighted. Having demarcated these points, we point out that the objectives of the argumentation presented consist of (1) describing the aesthetic characteristics of this phenomenon to understand the aspects that compose it; (2) address the science fiction literary genre; (3) to take up aspects of traditional African and historical cultures. The reflections of Ytasha L. Womack in Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture and Mark Dery in the essay “Black to the Future”, as well as Adam Roberts in The True History of Science Fiction, lay the theoretical ground. We adopted as a method the bibliographic, qualitative and descriptive research, thus offering (1) a descriptive approach to the phenomenon, (2) deepening the perceptions and meanings present in the selected corpus, thus offering (3) interpretation and reflexive analysis; and (4) contextualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]