Acknowledgments -- Joanna Russ, trans-temp agent: from the death of the universe to "the second Inquisition" -- Joanna Russ and the new wave: experiment and experience in the world of "And Chaos Died" -- Year zero art: a lost generation finds its voice in "The Female Man" -- The secret feminist cabal: SF's sexual politics and the "Khatru" symposium -- The spook by science fiction's door: Joanna Russ, violence, and "We Who Are About To..." -- Joining the cultural minority: "The Two of Them" puts the female man on trial -- Beyond gender? "Extra(Ordinary)People" imagines a world without feminism -- "Postscribble": an afterword -- Interviews -- A Joanna Russ bibliography -- Notes -- Select bibliography of secondary sources -- Index.
Summary:
Experimental, strange, and unabashedly feminist, Joanna Russ's groundbreaking science fiction grew out of a belief that the genre was ideal for expressing radical thought. Her essays and criticism, meanwhile, helped shape the field and still exercise a powerful influence in both SF and feminist literary studies.Award-winning author and critic Gwyneth Jones offers a new appraisal of Russ's work and ideas. After years working in male-dominated SF, Russ emerged in the late 1960s with Alyx, the uber-capable can-do heroine at the heart of Picnic on Paradise and other popular stories and books. Soon, Russ's fearless embrace of gender politics and life as an out lesbian made her a target for male outrage while feminist classics like The Female Man and The Two of Them took SF in innovative new directions. Jones also delves into Russ's longtime work as a critic of figures as diverse as Lovecraft and Cather, her foundational place in feminist fandom, important essays like "Amor Vincit Foeminam," and her career in academia.
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