At the beginning of the semester, I had not known much about the cold war or science fiction. Like most people, I had vaguely learned about the Cold War and events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Space race and had enjoyed the occasional science fiction novel while being a big Star Wars nerd. Immediately this class took a deeper dive into both topics than I had expected. Being a chemistry major fresh out of highschool, literature theory and cold war history eluded me. I had thought I had some sort of understanding of both, but I was even stumped by the seemingly easy, but quite complex question of “what is science fiction?” I thought there had been a definite answer if somehow Star Wars was considered a space opera and not science fiction to critics, but I hadn’t exactly known what that meant. My initial answer to “what is science fiction?” was a story either set in the future, or on another planet with some sort of difference in technologies. The question showed the ability for one’s brain to be able to identify something without knowing what it is. The first reading assignment was shocking and was much more than anticipated, with complex and intense vocabulary and ideas. As a nice introductory assignment, we drove right into what science fiction was to some of the most renowned science fiction authors during the cold war along with what they deemed as “good” science fiction. To be perfectly honest I was very lost and only grasped some of the ideas and concepts and found the essays very dull and snobby. We then read through multiple novels from both the United States, and the Eastern Bloc, and the spectrum of understanding was widened. Learning the historical context and applying it to the prominent themes of the novel were things I thought were only done to torment high school students. This was until I understood that it is actually important and can make the piece of literature so much more interesting. Terms like cognitive estrangement, the Thaw, and didactic became important and relevant to both the novel I was reading, and to history. I had only somewhat understood these terms and others like them when they were first introduced but seeing examples and working out how it played into what I was reading or watching solidified my understanding of it. I learned that art such as these pieces were not completely spontaneous, that a swirling storm of history and circumstances gave people the tools to create beautiful and inventive pieces for the world to enjoy. Before this class if I was asked to watch Bladerunner and say what historical circumstances it was based off, I wouldn’t know where to start. I have also learned a lot more about cold war history, now knowing that the thaw was the period after Stalin died where the cold war became less “cold” and tensions weren’t as high. I also understand that many of the history books we read in highschool often make the United States seem as if they are the “good guys” rather than mentioning the atrocities and missteps they have made. Now, to answer the question from the beginning of the class, “what is science fiction?” I would say, science fiction is fluid in definition throughout history, not having set rules, but often using aliens, technologies, or events to create a world both different, yet akin to ours often abiding by a science that is either based off what is known or making new sciences to achieve the same effect. This often for an effect of critique or to discuss issues or ideas of the time period, or merely for the effect of entertainment.
Science fiction and the cold war have an interconnectedness that helps define the genre and affect the ideas and beliefs of people during the time period. Language and literature have posed a great impact on society by swaying people’s beliefs and changing the perspective of those impacted by it. The cold war was a time of great polarization between the capitalist powers and communist powers, primarily between the United States and the USSR. In order to combat this polarization, it was up to authors and critics to break down the barrier and create a mutual understanding between those with differing ideologies. That is where cognitive estrangement, a term coined by the science fiction author Darko Suvin comes to attempt to tear down the iron curtain. Cognitive estrangement derives from the word cognitive referring to understanding and acquiring information, and estrangement which refers to the alienation and lacking a previous relationship. Though these seem contradictory, they are used together to explain a common idea used in science fiction. Cognitive estrangement is taking something someone is familiar with and putting into a new context where it no longer seems familiar in order to then critique and understand in a different perspective.
A further explanation of Suvin’s ideas of science fiction are described in the first post (start with Language and Ideas in Science Fiction page) I have included which is written by my classmate Karaleigh Saar. Although she doesn’t use the word cognitive estrangement in her piece, she describes it quite well and talks about the importance of science fiction in this light. The second post I have included is my own about the importance of word choice and syntax in science fiction in which the author Samuel R. Delany writes about in his About 5,750 Words. I believe that word choice and syntax are vital to achieving cognitive estrangement because the reader needs to see their world changed dramatically whether it be because of the change in time, past events, or even scenery. As it can be seen already, language and the idea of cognitive estrangement are very important in science fiction during the cold war. The next three blogs posts (go to Cold War History and Context page) were all written about the cold war and the affects and ideologies primarily in the USSR and Eastern Bloc on science fiction literature. They are written by Quinn Hughes, myself, and Masato Hirakata respectively. These pieces are very important to understanding how communist nations viewed literature during the cold war. The pieces show the restrictive elements along with the ideologies that created the science fiction seen in Eastern Europe during the cold war along with how changes in leadership and ideas spawned new novels and pieces of literature. The last 4 blog posts (go to the Examples Implemented into Science Fiction page) are written by me and are examples of the themes and ideas presented throughout the previous 5 posts. The first two posts in this category are written about on a novel named The Dispossessed, written by Ursula Le Guin. The novel The Dispossessed, is about a man named Shevek who is from an anarchial socialist moon orbiting the planet Urras in which he visits. Urras is a place much like Earth during the cold war with many different governments with its own cold war going on between A-Io, the capitalistic superpower, and Thu, the communist superpower. The conflict between these two powers parallels that of the cold war on Earth, so these two blog posts talk about the cognitive estrangement and parallels between this fictional universe, and reality. The third blog post of this group is about the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick. This novel is about a bounty hunter that works with the police force to eliminate androids that have escaped Mars. These androids look exactly like humans, so the only way to differentiate them from humans is by using an instrument that tests the empathy of its subject which the androids are not capable of. This book parallels the paranoia of American citizens during the cold war, because they were afraid of communist spies hiding among everyone due to McCarthyism. Both Le Guin and Philip K. Dick were born and lived in the United States, while the author of the novel Andromeda, the focus of the last blog post, was born and lived in Russia/USSR. His name was Ivan Yefremov, and his novel Andromeda, was about a socialist government that banded together with other sentient species to help each other co-exist. A large focus of the novel is on space travel and the discovery of new life on other planets, whether it be intentional or not, and the blog posts discusses the didactic nature of Soviet literature.
Some of the important terms to note throughout the project, are cognitive estrangement, which was previously explained, and the term didactic. If something is didactic, it means it has an instructive quality to it. This is seen primarily in the cold war context posts, and in the science fiction examples. Some of the other ideas we learned about in novels and movies that were part of the curriculum that were about technological advancement and the loss of tradition in The Glass Bees, mutually assure destruction in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and The Silent Star. Contact with aliens was discusses in Solaris, (both the novel and the movie) and Roadside Picnic. We have also discussed societal ideas and their changes such as views on race and gender and their roles in Trouble on Triton. We discussed how socialism and communisms appealed to people of color because of the chance for true equality and how this was portrayed in science fiction. We also discussed gender norms and whether gender should even matter through the use of Utopian societies and future technologies.