Science Fiction and the Slipstream

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Everyday Life: Links

One concept that's come up a lot in our discussions of slipstream literature is "everyday life". What is everyday life, and why do so many of these authors seem to find it so strange and disturbing?

• For an interesting stab at an answer, you might try the writings of Raoul Vaneigem, a key theorist of the Situationist International, a radical group whose philosophy and slogans became part of the punk subculture of the 70's. Here is a link to a particularly provocative chapter of Vaneigem's best -known work, The Revolution of Everyday Life.

This is a page of some questions that I expect we'll gravitate around and towards over the course of the semester (we've touched on many of them already), and some historical/critical contexts that inform them. Use this for purposes of rumination, and to spark thoughts about final paper topics, presentations, etc.

• Visit the homepage of Science Fiction EYE, a magazine of criticism, letters, and reviews. Some of the most exciting and innovative names in SF write for the EYE, including
  
  
• Bruce Sterling, the unelected "Chairman" of the cyberpunk movement. Read/download his perceptive, witty Catscan columns.
  
  
• Some interesting-looking critical pieces by another SF author-critic, the well-reputed Gwyneth Jones.
  
  
• Laura Quilter's Feminist SF, Fantasy, & Utopia Page looks like an excellent site for critical resources.
  
  
• Here's a link to the Virginia Tech Online Speculative Fiction Project, which has digitized copies of entire SF magazines from the Golden Age (the earliest example comes from 1929), complete with garish color cover illustrations and advertisements. A nifty way to get a look at how SF first began to gel as a genre.
  
  
• The World Science Fiction Society, which gives out the Hugo Awards for SF, has a list of Hugo Winners year-by-year-- one good way to get an idea of how the field has been evolving.