Paper Proposal

Question: Why does the image of technology in Science Fiction alienate blacks from the genre? How does technology alienate black characters in SF works? What work does technology do in creating the 'other'?

Literary texts: Nova, Samuel R. Delany

Robot Stories, Greg Pak

Bedwin Hacker, Nadia El Fani

Critical Texts: "Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel R. Delany," Mark Dery

*possibly - "Dangerous and Important Differences," Jeffrey A. Tucker

Passages: From "Black to the Future,"

"The miniature technology you cite is not a shiny, glittering, polished technology. Above all, it comes in matte-black, plastic boxes. From the beepers, the Walkmen, the Diskmen, through the biggest ghetto blaster - the stuff put forward as portable is not chromium. It's black."

Thesis: Throughout history, the use of technology by whites to control and animalize blacks has created a complicated relationship between blacks and technology. Through the analysis of SF literature and the genre as a whole, we can observe the use of technology to alienate blacks and create a clear division between those who use the technology and those who do not (are victims of technology?).