Abstract

Looks at feminist science fiction in the context of utopian thought. The term utopia implies both "good place" and "nowhere". Since Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia in 1516, debates about utopian models of society have sought to understand the implications of these somewhat contradictory definitions. In Notes on Nowhere, Jennifer Burwell uses contemporary feminist science fiction to examine the political and literary meaning of utopian writing and thought. Burwell provides close readings of the science fiction of five feminist writers -- Marge Piercy, Sally Gearhart, Joanna Russ, Octavia Butler, and Monique Wittig -- and poses questions central to utopian writing: Do these texts promote a tradition in which narratives of the ideal society have been used to hide rather than reveal violence, oppression, and social divisions? Can a feminist critical utopia offer a departure from this tradition by exposing contradiction and struggle as central aspects of the utopian impulse? What implications do these questions have for those who wish to retain the utopian impulse for emancipatory political uses? Notes on Nowhere makes an original, significant, and persuasive contribution to our understanding of the political and literary dimensions of the utopian impulse in literature and social theory.