"The Persistence of Hope in Dystopian Science Fiction"

The article appeared in the section "Correspondents Abroad" of a special issue dedicated to "Science Fiction and Literary Studies: The New Millennium." The section addresses the ways in which one's cultural, biographical circumstances and geographies inform one's reading and approach of science fiction. The article focuses on the recent production of what I have called "critical dystopias." This kind of writing, critical and ambiguous and mainly produced by feminist writers, has become the preferred form for an expression of struggle and resistance. Some of the features of critical dystopias are: the presence of "utopian moments" within the pages of dystopia; genre blurring; memory and historical consciousness.