H2020Индивидуална стипендия2021–2023

neoMONSTERS · The neoMONSTERS Within: The Others in India’s Science Fiction

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2021-09-01 → 2023-09-05
Финансиране от ЕС: 214 159 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF

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Накратко на български

Чудовищата в съвременната индийска научна фантастика се анализират като метафори за политическия екстремизъм и пандемиите. Разбирането на тези образи помага да се проучи как обществото възприема маргинализираните групи хора.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

The neoMONSTERS Within: The Others in India’s Science Fiction

How do monsters function – and what do they mean – in a world ravaged by religious and political extremism, fundamentalism, and the pandemic? Monsters are entangled in fictional imaginings and lived realities and become mutating and mutagenic metaphors in/of our popular culture(s). The neoMONSTERS action investigates the alternate presents and fictional futures in India’s contemporary Science Fiction to view monsters as neoMONSTERS: “Mutating/Mutagenic Ontological Narratives in Space-Time Echoing Realistic Situations”. It delves into how India’s popular narratives negotiate epistemes of monstrousness and manifest contesting ideologies within the nation’s popular imagination. It also studies how/why the others in India’s SF were created and interrogated by new tomorrows. Understanding these monsters and the times in which they are imbricated can help us revisit the way we approach marginalised populaces. The action sheds light on how monsters are entangled with the worlds we inhabit and imbricated in the milieux that produces us. The project objectives revolve around 1) understanding monsters that operate within Indian Science Fiction, 2) illuminating the connections between Science Fiction, popular imagination, dystopias, GCC and political turmoil 3) refining the “transMIT (mythology, ideology, technology) thesis,” of the IN Situ model 4) studying monsters and related phenomena across mediums, 5) creating an archive of texts/videos that can act as a base camp for further forays into the area and to communicate/disseminate the results of the research to both scientific and general audiences, and 6) exploring the synthesis of a comparative framework that assesses how speculative traditions and popular imaginations are critiqued and deployed across different regional traditions. The overall objective – which was to locate, place, understand, and theorize monsters of Indian SF – was met via the outcomes of the project.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

The Science Fiction (SF) of a spatio-temporal location is a window into the soul of a people. It manifests the “cultural unease” that specific identities evoke in the national imagination. SF not only demonstrates how contesting ideologies slug it out within the ring of the popular but also interrogates how metaphorical reimaginings of the ‘other’ are projected on and by a people’s collective psyche. This proposed action maps India’s fictional futures and the state of its religious and political minorities through a study of its (SF) monsters. It explores how India’s popular imagination engages with a ‘Maoist’ China, ‘Islamic’ Pakistan, ‘Western’ transnational capitalism/neo-imperialism and Hindu Nationalism in and via its SF. The action argues that alterity in Indian SF – and hence, in India – is primarily contingent upon the discourses of nationhood (vis-à-vis Pakistan/China/U.S./Europe), religion (e.g. Islam, Christianity) and political orientation (e.g. Islamism, Maoism, Capitalism). It also seeks to comprehend how the ‘others’ of Indian SF (aliens, zombies, clones, mutants, robots, AI and monsters) become referents of religion, ethnicity and political orientation. Appropriating core methods of Science Fiction Studies, Science and Technology Studies, Digital Humanities, Game Studies and Transmedial Narratology, this action delves into the mechanics of otherness and its negotiation with contemporary South Asian geopolitics. Through its emphasis on post-2000 narratives selected from across mediums, the action spans across the extrapolations of tomorrow (e.g. future wars, religious dystopias) and the distortions of the present (e.g. zombie apocalypses, robot uprisings). It hunts for India’s such neoMONSTERS: Mutagenic Ontological Narratives in Space-Time Echoing Realistic Situations.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO · OsloКоординаторНорвегия