Dobby the Robot: the Science Fiction in \u3ci\u3eHarry Potter\u3c/i\u3e

Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke has famously argued that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This paper starts by exploring a few general ways in which science fiction influences Harry Potter, then focuses attention on one key element of science fiction which Potter quite clearly appropriates: the classic trope of the robot or created servant. First, using close textual analysis, the paper traces the robot trope and its accompanying features from its origins in Golem legends and in Shelley\u27s Frankenstein, through classic works of science fiction, including Čapek’s R.U.R., Asimov’s I, Robot, Heinlein’s The Moon is A Harsh Mistress and Lucas’ Star Wars. These features include the humanization of robots, the introduction of ethical considerations regarding personhood through the intervention of empathetic female characters, the chronic and advantageous underestimation of robots, and the narrative function of robots or droids as secret keepers and preservers of memory. Again utilizing a close reading of the texts, the paper identifies these as defining features of Rowling’s house-elves, who defy their fantasy genre and demonstrate science fiction’s unexpected yet profound influence on Potter

Cryptomimetic tropes in Yoshitomo Nakura’s Batman: Death Mask

This article discusses the gothic and science fiction influences apparent in Yoshinori Natsume’s Batman: Death Mask with reference to the Derridean notion of the crypt and Jodey Castricano’s linguistic/structural model of cryptomimesis. It begins at the widest level, noting the gothic nature of the superhero in general (whose fragmented identity and use of tropes such as the mask reference this mode. It notes a similar presence of science fiction motifs in the industry’s archetypes, making reference to notions such as pseudo-science and alternate worlds. It then relates these observations specifically to Batman, arguing that this character encapsulates many of these tropes. In terms of the gothic, it discusses the psychogeographic setting of Gotham City, the mask motif, and the tropes of night-time and the vampire bat. It proceeds to consider science fiction tropes in similar terms, making reference to elements such as Batman’s lack of powers and extensive use of gadgetry. It introduces the Derridean notion of the crypt (as something both hidden and external to itself) and, more particularly, to Jodey Castricano’s theories of cryptomimesis (as reliant upon notion of absence, reversal and the other within). It relates these observations to the comics medium in terms of its non-linear nature and hierarchical construction of story arcs. It argues that the cryptomimetic model is particularly applicable to the Batman mythos, which revolves around the notion of memories locked inside and the reversals of ‘secret identity’ and ‘alter ego’. It then narrows this argument still further to consider the presence of gothic and science fiction tropes in Natsume’s Batman: Death Mask. It notes the style and structure of this comic and argues that the juxtaposition of manga stylistics with American comics tropes produces an inherently alien and futuristic effect, despite the historical nature of the story in question, which draws on Japanese tradition. It analyses the comic’s content in similar terms, paying particular attention to the addition of an extra identity to the ‘Batman’ and ‘Bruce Wayne’ facets of this character, and the reversal of the mask motif (as a threat rather than a shield). It concludes by demonstrating that the presentation of these elements is cryptomimetic: reliant on absence, reversal and the notion of the other within

Crisis (re)constructed: Ridley Scott's Alien saga as a study of organizational collapse

Fictional narratives have been the focus of organizational research since at least the early 1990s, studied as an insight into the cultural milieu, as a reflection of organizational experiences, as a source of inspiration for members of organization, and as a representation of the sensemaking processes (Czarniawska-Joerges and Guillet de Monthoux, 1994; Hassard and Holliday, 1998). Our text builds upon all these traditions, analysing two films, related but separated by over thirty years, and their construal of a fatal organizational crisis. While all cinematography of a given period may be generally perceived as a reflection of sorts of its fears, hopes and values, the horror and science fiction genres seem to be particularly sensitive to “registers of the psychic and of the sociopolitical” (Freccero, 1999, p. 111). The films we have chosen for our analysis, Alien and Prometheus, generally classified as science fiction horror, can thus be expected to provide a singularly insightful portrayal of the anxieties (in our case, organizational ones) that they depict. The film Alien, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Sigourney Weaver, debuted to critical and commercial acclaim in 1979. Through a seemingly banal and clichéd science fiction narrative, the film explored issues of gender (Creed, 1990), body (Constable, 1999), and technology (Bukatman, 1993) in ways that proved ripe for critical academic reflection over the next three decades. What received somewhat less attention was that the movie was at its core an organizational fiction—its narrative told of a small organizational division (the seven-person crew of a commercial cargo starship) dealing with a crisis situation. It was also organizational issues that provided the main complication in dealing with the alien intruder: secret instructions left by the absent and unidentified (but hierarchically powerful) managers who, driven by corporate greed, jeopardized the safety (indeed, the very survival) of the crew for a chance of greater profit. Alien was followed by numerous sequels helmed by a variety of directors until, in 2012, Ridley Scott returned to the setting of Alien in a new film, Prometheus, starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender. This movie shares many similarities with its predecessor, notably in its most basic setup of a small spaceship crew experiencing life-threatening contact with an unknown, but hostile, lifeform, and again ask questions about basic organizational issues in the process. Yet the current context in which the film was created is markedly different, with the world transformed by events ranging from the fall of communism, through advancing globalization and privatization of the public sphere to the current financial crisis; more generally, the transition into what Zygmunt Bauman (2000) termed the liquid modernity has reshaped the organizational world (Kociatkiewicz and Kostera, forthcoming). Not surprisingly, (re)construction of the crisis and the factors contributing to institutional collapse in the newer film appear quite different than thirty years ago: the portrayed organization is torn apart by a number of conflicting (though, again, often secret) goals and agendas pursued by various crew members, and by blinkered focus on one’s own objectives to the detriment of common aims (including group survival). In this paper, we compare these two stories of organizational collapse and the milieus in which their originated (including both the academic and popular reflection on organizations as well as contemporaneous science fiction and horror films touching on similar themes), not only to provide a better understanding of the changing fears and anxieties organizations hold for their participants, but also to question the changing social construction of work organization: as a venue of shared activity, of collective sensemaking, and as a social platform for accomplishing shared as well as individual goals

Arrival of the Fittest

Prometheus, the fifth film of the Alien franchise, maintains narrative connections to the original four films but the inclusion of new aliens—the Engineers—radically shifts the feminist politic of the series. There is a move away from centralising the monster and the repressed feminine, through images of horror and bodily abjection, toward a politic of carnival, seen in representations of multiple grotesque bodies and subversion of the affect of primal scenes. Carnival is a space where the authority and stability of current social powers and orders are challenged and subverted. This article contends that in Prometheus such a process occurs in the deliberate mixing of scientific knowledge and religious cosmologies, the ambivalent relationship of horror and SF genres to science and scientific knowledge, the gendered complexities of the specific bodies of astronauts and of scientists, and disruptions of the notion of gaze and viewer positioning in the opening scenes

H.P. Lovecraft’s Philosophy of Science Fiction Horror

The paper is an examination and critique of the philosophy of science fiction horror of seminal American horror, science fiction and fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). Lovecraft never directly offers a philosophy of science fiction horror. However, at different points in his essays and letters, he addresses genres he labels “interplanetary fiction”, “horror”, “supernatural horror”, and “weird fiction”, the last being a broad heading covering both supernatural fiction and science fiction. Taken together, a philosophy of science fiction horror emerges. Central to this philosophy is the juxtaposition of the mysterious, unnatural and alien against a realistic background, in order to produce the emotion that Lovecraft calls “cosmic fear”. This background must not only be scientifically accurate, but must accurately portray human psychology, particularly when humans are faced with the weird and alien. It will be argued that Lovecraft’s prescriptions are overly restrictive and would rule out many legitimate works of science fiction horror art. However, he provides useful insights into the genre

The Holocaust as Fiction: Derrida’s \u3cem\u3eDemeuere\u3c/em\u3e and the Demjanjuk Trial in Philip Roth’s \u3cem\u3eOperation Shylock\u3c/em\u3e

This essay investigates the representation of juridical testimony in Roth’s “confession,” Operation Shylock. Read through the theoretical lens of Jacques Derrida, specifically in terms of his Demeure, Roth’s novel suggests a new strategy for coping with the Holocaust in literature, wherein writing remains true both to the Holocaust as unspeakable and to the Holocaust as actual historical event

‘Borne again in repetition’ : reincarnation, afterlives, and cultural memory in Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome

The present article reads the social and cultural afterlives of a particular marginalised group in colonial Calcutta in Amitav Ghosh’s fourth novel The Calcutta Chromosome, and seeks to examine how these reconstructions of afterlives are linked with the ancient Indian philosophy of rebirth and reincarnation. This study seeks to understand the significance of body and ghost in reconstructing the afterlives and analyse the role of cultural memory throughout that process.peer-reviewe