Tag: masoodraja

The Postnational Fantasy Essays on Postcolonialism, Cosmopolitics and Science Fiction, Now Published and Available from McFarland!

UPDATE: The Postnational Fantasy now has its own page on dynamicsubspace.net here.

I am very pleased to announce the publication of The Postnational Fantasy: Essays on Postcolonialism, Cosmopolitics and Science Fiction, my first co-edited collection of essays with with my good friends and colleagues Masood Ashraf Raja and Swaralipi Nandi! Click here to purchase it directly from the publisher McFarland & Co or click here to purchase it from Amazon (they should receive copies soon).

Below, I have included the book jacket copy, editor biographies, and the table of contents.

The Postnational Fantasy: Essays on Postcolonialism, Cosmopolitics and Science Fiction

Edited by Masood Ashraf Raja, Jason W. Ellis and Swaralipi Nandi

Foreword by Donald M. Hassler

Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-6141-7

EBook ISBN: 978-0-7864-8555-0

notes, bibliographies, index

225pp. softcover 2011

Buy Now!

Price: $40.00

Available for immediate shipment

About the Book

In twelve critical and interdisciplinary essays, this text examines the relationship between the fantastic in novels, movies and video games and real-world debates about nationalism, globalization and cosmopolitanism. Topics covered include science fiction and postcolonialism, issues of ethnicity, nation and transnational discourse. Altogether, these essays chart a new discursive space, where postcolonial theory and science fiction and fantasy studies work cooperatively to expand our understanding of the fantastic, while simultaneously expanding the scope of postcolonial discussions.

Table of Contents

Foreword by DONALD M. HASSLER

Introduction by MASOOD A. RAJA and SWARALIPI NANDI

Part I: Postcolonial Issues in Science Fiction

1. Science Fiction as Experimental Ground for Issues of the Postcolonial Novel by MICHELE BRAUN

2. Truth Is Stranger: The Postnational “Aliens” of Biofiction by KAREN CARDOZO and BANU SUBRAMANIAM

3. Forms of Compromise: The Interaction of Humanity, Technology and Landscape in Ken MacLeod’s Night Sessions by ADAM FRISCH

4. The Language of Postnationality: Cultural Identity via Science Fictional Trajectories by CHRIS PAK

Part II: The Nation and Ethnicity in Science Fiction

5. The “Popular” Science: Bollywood’s Take on Science Fiction and the Discourse of Nations by SWARALIPI NANDI

6. Postcolonial Ethics and Identity in Mike Resnick’s Kirinyaga by JENN BRANDT

7. The Frontier Myth and Racial Politics by ÁNGEL MATEOS-APARICIO MARTÍN-ALBO

8. Dystopia and the Postcolonial Nation by SUPARNO BANERJEE

Part III: Towards a Postnational Discourse

9. Body Speaks: Communication and the Limits of Nationalism in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy by KATHERINE R. BROAD

10. Engineering a Cosmopolitan Future: Race, Nation, and World of Warcraft by JASON W. ELLIS

11. When “Nation” Stops Making Sense: Mexican and Giorgio Agamben’s “State of Exception” in Children of Men by STACY SCHMITT RUSNAK

12. Fantastic Language/Political Reporting: The Postcolonial SF Illocutionary Force Is with Us by MARLEEN S. BARR

About the Contributors

Index

About the Editors

Masood Ashraf Raja is an assistant professor of Postcolonial literature and theory at the University of North Texas, and editor of Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies. Jason W. Ellis is an English literature Ph.D candidate at Kent State University and holder of an M.A. in science fiction studies from the University of Liverpool. Swaralipi Nandi is an English literature Ph.D candidate at Kent State University, whose research focus is postcolonial literature and theory.

Also read the announcement on Masood Raja’s blog here.

Journal Announcement for Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies

Kent State University Professor Masood Raja has established a new peer-reviewed electronic journal called Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies, and he asked me to be its layout editor.  I’m excited to make a contribution to this cutting-edge journal. 

A description of the journal along with a call for papers is listed below:  

Masood Raja (Kent State University) has started a new academic journal entitled Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies. This is a peer-reviewed, multi-disciplinary electronic journal offering a forum for a serious academic and creative engagement with various aspects of Pakistani culture, literature, and politics. Though several existing journals do pay a fair degree of attention to the issues of South Asia and Postcoloniality, we feel that under the current climate of high capital and war on terror, Pakistan, often subsumed under the larger registers of South Asia or Postcolonial Studies, needs a particular space of its own in our academic and creative undertakings. Thus, Pakistaniaat aims to provide a public space on the Internet to introduce and discuss hitherto neglected aspects of Pakistani cultural and literary production and to make this knowledge available to a worldwide audience.

Pakistaniaat, thus, aims to provide an inclusive venue to all those interested in issues specifically related to Pakistan, its culture, literature, and its place in the region as well as in the world. We aim to accomplish the important mission of “covering Pakistan” by publishing scholarly articles, creative works, translations, and reviews of books about Pakistan. To visit the journal, go to http://www.pakistaniaat.org.

 The journal is currently seeking submissions for its first issue in June 2009; all those interested in submitting to the journal or working on the staff, should contact Dr. Raja at mraja@kent.edu.