This book focusses on gender and race, and their representation in American SF, from the 19C to the present, and in forms including literature and film. It explores how SF provides a rich medium for both the preservation of and challenges to dominant mythologies of gender and race. Defining SF linguistically and culturally, it shows that SF not only illuminates the cultural and social histories of gender and race, but so too can it intervene in those histories, and highlight the ruptures present within them. Arguing that SF must become central to discussions of identity, this book contributes to SF, American literature and culture, Whiteness Studies, and critical gender and race studies.
