- How is the development of new technology and the undertaking of scientific research influenced by cultural factors? What is the relationship between media representation and fictional works to those things? Can you think of examples where such research and development has been either supported or hindered by public understandings? What does this say about the shared cultural perspectives and ethical considerations surrounding such advancements? About oppositional stances? For example, how much does consumerism shape technological and scientific advancements? How do they shape consumption?
Human Culture and Science Fiction: A Review of the Literature, 1980-2016 https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244017723690 SAGE Open July-September 2017: 1 –15 © The Author(s) 2017 DOI: 10.1177/2158244017723690 journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). Article Introduction Culture has been defined as “the symbolic, ideational, and intangible aspects of human societies. The essence of a cul- ture is not its artifacts, tools, or other tangible cultural ele- ments but how the members of the group interpret, use, and perceive them” (Banks & Banks, 2004, p. 8), or, more sim- ply, as knowledge and behaviors shared within groups of interacting individuals (Useem, Useem, & Donoghue, 1963). For the purposes of this review, we accepted that the search terms employed would capture the definitions of culture that were understood by the authors of the sources we discov- ered. These sources indicated that science fiction has become prominent in social and cultural research that is not purely focused on science fiction content, but which uses science fiction to complement research across a broad range of disci- plines and research activities. Science fiction is significant in studies of human culture as it is an ancient and enduring form of literature that has been part of what Brian Aldiss called our “cultural wallpa- per” since the origins of recorded history (Aldiss & Wigmore, 1986, p. 14). Adam Roberts suggested that science fiction begins with the “voyages extraordinaires” of the Ancient Greeks (Roberts, 2005, p. vii), but we might go back a mil- lennium further to the Sumerian creation story, with the supreme god Marduk “cloning” mankind from the blood and bone of the renegade god Kingu (Enûma Eliš, 5.26). Science fiction became an increasingly significant genre for literary study after Darko Suvin’s (1979) epochal publication of Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, which raised the profile of science fiction as a legitimate field of academic enquiry (Hassler, 1999). Suvin’s work has become a core text around which the study of science fiction circulates, and it has been used accordingly as the limiting date for this review. The complexities of the relationship between science fic- tion and human realities are manifest. From a literary-critical perspective, Carl Freedman described science fiction as the most legitimate genre for academic study, placing it above all other forms of literature for its analytical potential (Freedman, 2000). From the human perspective, science fiction has grown from a more or less plausible science focus in the early 20th century to adopt more sociological and cultural factors over time. By the 1960s and 1970s, science fiction generated by the “British New Wave” reflected dramatic changes in contemporary culture, especially political aspects of gender, conflict, and freedom of expression. Driven by the need to provide some sort of manageable interpretation of an 723690 SGOXXX10.1177/2158244017723690SAGE OpenMenadue and Cheer research-article20172017 1The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Queensland, Australia Corresponding Author: Christopher Benjamin Menadue, The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, MacGregor Road, Cairns, QLD 4870, Australia. Email:
[email protected] Human Culture and Science Fiction: A Review of the Literature, 1980-2016 Christopher Benjamin Menadue1 and Karen Diane Cheer1 Abstract This article aimed to uncover the foci, themes, and findings of research literature that utilized science fiction content or concepts to describe and illustrate human culture. To capture a representative range of research, the PRISMA process was applied to database searches across a range of disciplines, not restricted to science fiction journals. Findings revealed that science fiction literature has been used in research across disciplines including theology, semantics, natural sciences, and education. Two characteristics of the use of science fiction in research became evident in the review: its role as a tool for advocacy and cultural insight and its effectiveness as an aid to learning and teaching. An unclear boundary between real science and science in the public imagination is problematic for research success, but the purposeful integration of fictional representations of science (both natural and social) into the research story has demonstrable benefits. To address the limited application of objective methodologies, adoption of increasingly robust quantitative analysis into research in the fields of literature and culture is recommended. This would assist in bridging the two cultures divide between the humanities and natural sciences. Keywords convergence, fiction, methodology, multidisciplinary, science communication, two cultures https://journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo mailto:
[email protected] http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F2158244017723690&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2017-08-03 2 SAGE Open increasingly complex and unstable social and intellectual reality, it absorbed and softened the impact of that complex- ity by depicting possible futures as being similarly icono- clastic and haphazard (Greenland, 1983). It has even been argued that the intermingling of science fiction and fact regarding the creation of artificial intelligences and synthetic humans permeates our culture so deeply that it influences our existential relationship with God (Geraci, 2007). Science fiction questions the role, relevance, costs, and benefits of current and future technologies, and presents ideas that can influence public opinion. Brian Stableford claimed that science fiction could determine the worldview of individuals, by the modification of attitudes to the signifi- cance of current and future science and technology (Stableford, 1979). Marshall Tymn agreed that as a literature, science fiction equips us to accept change as natural and inevitable (Tymn, 1985). As change is a natural outcome of applied scientific research, science fiction has been employed as a tool by researchers to provide metaphors, analogies, and models that describe the findings of their research (Bina, Mateus, Pereira, & Caffa, 2017; Hansen, 2004; Kotasek, 2015; McIntire, 1982; Toscano, 2011). Human acceptance of change is difficult and resists authoritative statements of fact, as has been identified in applied psychological and socio- logical studies (Nyhan, Reifler, Richey, & Freed, 2014; Prochaska, DiClemente, & Norcross, 1992). Science fiction is an effective agent for change, and, as Stableford (1979) has suggested, it also has a “directive effect” on people’s interpretations of science. Ann Rigney described how Kurt Vonnegut’s widely read 1969 science fiction novel Slaughter- House Five has educated readers about the scale and impact of the bombing of Dresden, despite the dubious accuracy of Vonnegut’s depiction compared with historical records (Rigney, 2009). This is an example of how science fiction can overwrite the cultural memory of historic events and has become “centrally relevant in many explorations of contem- porary culture” (Hollinger, 1999, p. 1). This “cultural wallpaper” exerts influence on society, which is persistent, and pervades the work of researchers in both the humanities and the natural sciences. Sheila Schwartz suggested that science fiction “is not only a bridge between the two cultures of science and the humanities; it is a bridge between all cultures as it summarizes and expresses the nightmare fears, myths, and inescapable concerns of all peo- ple today” (Schwartz, 1971, p. 1044). Science fiction narra- tives also provide a historical record of changes over time in social and cultural values that can be used to map these to their original contexts (Menadue, 2017). A deeper under- standing of the relationship between research, culture, and science fiction is necessary, and the application of science fiction as a tool in the context of research should be encour- aged. There is evidently a relationship between science, sci- ence fiction, and the cultural imagination, and the significance of this relationship should be assessed; however, reviews of academic literature on this subject were not located. The purpose of this literature review was to provide an overview of the research relating science fiction to culture across a range of academic disciplines, and was not limited to science fiction studies. This review aimed to uncover the breadth and depth of the relationships between science fic- tion and human culture that have been expressed in peer- reviewed research that 1. investigated the uses of science fiction by researchers who described possible causal or correlational rela- tionships between science fiction content, culture, and society; and/or 2. employed science fiction concepts as analogies to explain or illustrate cultural activity. Selected journal articles and book chapters indexed in four online databases were analyzed. A limitation of the study was that nonindexed publications were excluded, and consequently, older and more specialized publications were underrepresented. The objectives of the review were to report the focus of research, theme of research, and summary find- ings. To add objective rigor to the study, the reviewing team included members from multidisciplinary backgrounds. Method A PRISMA1 process was applied to identify papers and book chapters from JSTOR, PubMed, SCOPUS, and Web of Science databases. To ensure all relevant research literature was identified, an advanced search strategy was undertaken with librarian consultation, described in Figure. 1. We included articles and book chapters published in English. Reviews, editorials, and conference papers were excluded. The scope of sources to investigate was based on publica- tions between 1980 (following Suvin’s Metamorphoses) and 2016. Web of Science Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI), SCOPUS, and PubMed databases were searched using the following search terms: •• Web of Science SSCI and A&HCI: Title Search = litera* AND (science AND ficti* AND cultur*) •• SCOPUS: Title Search, Abstract, Key Words = sci- ence AND Key Words ficti* AND Key Words = litera* AND Title, Abstract, Key Words = cultur* •• PubMed: ((litera*) AND science) AND ficti*) AND cultur* •• JSTOR: (((abstract:(science) AND abstract:(cultur*)) AND abstract:(litera*)) AND abstract:(ficti*)) Abstracts of retrieved publications were scanned for con- tent that included overt or strongly implied themes related to science fiction and culture. Abstracts with no clear links between science fiction and cultural topics or with only periph- eral references to science fiction and culture were excluded. Menadue and Cheer 3 Selected abstracts were distributed among the coauthors and an independent reviewer for validation according to three selection criteria: Did the publication •• relate science fiction (SF)content or concepts to soci- ety or culture, •• employ science fiction to illustrate culture or society, or •• employ