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Yu Guangyuan (China, 1915–2013)

The Smallness of the Earth and the Largeness of the Earth—A Grand Idea on 21st Century Construction (1996)

From: Yu Guangyuan, A Philosophical School is Rising in China, Nanchang: Jiangxi Science and Technology Press, 1996.

As part of a think tank initiated by Deng Xiaoping, the philosopher of technology Yu Guangyuan came up with the concept of “the Smallness of the Earth and the Largeness of the Earth”, giving a concrete image to the notion of a “technosphere” while indicating the ecological views of the Marxist political party. From our point of view today, talking about “the humanization of nature”, and thinking of humans and nature as mere resources, is indeed an anthropocentric position to be further decolonized. But such characterization of nature and the relationship with extraction remains nevertheless complex and shows Chinese Marxists’ attempt to revise Marxist discourse from the theory of class struggle to that of control, which has rarely been discussed.

Li Zehou and Liu Zaifu (China, 1930–; 1941–)

About Material Monism and Spiritual Pluralism (1995)

From: Li Zehou and Liu Zaifu, Farewell to Revolution: Looking Back on Twentieth-Century China, Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1995.

The most influential argument that Li Zehou raised in the 1990s was about the entangled relationship between two modes of Chinese modernization: Enlightenment and revolution. The epistemological legacy of Enlightenment from May Fourth Movement and the legacy of Lu Xun was revived in China during the 80s; while practices debating revolution could be easily found in the artistic debate of “ethnic forms” in the 40s, the Mass Art of the 60s, and even in contemporary Sci-Fi nationalism. Yet there is a less often touched upon topic: the advocacy for “spiritual ecology” and “multiple symbiosis” aiming to find an evolutionary, reformist trajectory from a Marxist perspective.

Tong Enzheng (China, 1935–1997)

Human Culture and Ecological Environment (1989)

From: Tong Enzheng, Cultural Anthropology, Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1989.

As a pioneer who had been writing science fiction since the 1950s, Tong Enzheng led the popularity of Sci-Fi during the early stages of Chinese economic reform. Tong believed that science fictions should have their distinctive ethnic features. Therefore, in his novels, what is to come may often have its referential roots in the distant past. Tong is also an important figure in the field of anthropology. In the work Cultural Anthropology, he investigates the relationship between technology and nature (through the lens of anthropology), and concludes that, in order to solve the dilemma that we are facing, mankind “should not rely on the development of science and technology alone” but needs to consider “the adaptive relationship between man and nature”. Perhaps, to measure the value of science fiction is to judge how well it asks practical questions, such as how people can adapt to nature and how nations can adjust to science.

Amitav Ghosh (India, 1956–)

Climate and Science Fiction (2016)

From: Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, Berlin: Berlin Family Lectures, 2016

In his non-fiction work The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, Amitav Ghosh points out that the crisis of climate, by essence, is the challenge that (our) culture and imaginations face. Climate conditions have always been in the background of every literary works and the point is to re-imagine how these backdrops in literature formed the direction of our desire. In the selected piece, Ghosh investigates the effect that rainy and freezing days, a result of the explosion of the world’s largest volcano in 1815, had on Mary Shelley’s creation of Frankenstein.

Nalo Hopkinson (Jamaica, 1960–)

Massa’s Tools (2004)

From: Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan eds, So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy, Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004

In the anthology of postcolonial Sci-Fi literature she co-edited, Nalo Hopkinson wrote a preface revealing the ‘double helix structure’ of Sci-Fi as a literary genre. Sci-Fi, serving as ‘a master’s instrument’, always comes with the risk of having internalised the coloniser’s ideology. For example, one may realise the rationality of colonisation in many classic science fiction stories, as they often include depictions of human beings expanding settlements on another planet, which in reality was experienced as an undisputed historical fact by many marginalised groups. Her further argument is that a good Sci-Fi writer should dedicate themselves to struggling against such toxic unconsciousness, and try to adopt non-Western literary devices to endorse alternative possibilities of technological evolution.