Medieval Science Fiction

Essays looking at the idea of "science fiction" as it can be applied to medieval texts, and the synergies between the genres.

This volume brings two areas of study that have traditionally been kept apart into explosive contact. For the first time, it draws the historical literatures and cultures of the Middle Ages into the orbit of modern science fiction, aligning the cosmologies, technologies and wonders of the past with visions of the future. The essays it contains consider where, how and why "science" and "fiction" interact in medieval literature; they explore the ways in which works of modern science fiction illuminate medieval counterparts; and they also identify the presence and absence of the medieval past in science-fiction history and criticism. From the science and fictions of Beowulf tothe medieval and post-medieval appearances of the Green Children of Woolpit; from time travel in the legend of the Seven Sleepers to the medievalism of Star Trek; from manmade marvels in medieval manuscripts to the blurringof medieval magic and futuristic technology in tales of the dying earth, the chapters repeatedly rethink the simplistic divides that have been set up between modern and pre-modern texts. They uncover striking resonances across time and space while also revealing how arguably the two most popular genres of today, science fiction and fantasy, have been constructed around conceptions, and misconceptions, of the Middle Ages.

JAMES PAZ is Lecturer in Early Medieval English Literature at the University of Manchester; CARL KEARS is currently based at King's College London, where he teaches Old and Middle English Literature.

Contributors: Daniel Anlezark, Mary BaineCampbell, Guy Consolmagno, Denis Ferhatovic, Michel F. Flynn, Alison Harthill, Patricia Clare Ingham, Minsoo Kang, R.M. Liuzza, Jeff Massey, James Paz, Andy Sawyer, Andrew Scheil