Science fiction at the border

This dissertation examines representations of border walls in speculative fiction. Films and novels analyzed include: What is to be done? by Nikolai Chernyshevsky; We by Evgeny Zamyatin; Sleep Dealer, directed by Alex Rivera; the MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood; A Planet for Rent by Yoss; and Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. Using a theoretical framework that combines biopolitics, Marxist literary analysis and critiques of neoliberalism as well as border studies scholarship, I argue that border walls have been a useful trope in utopian world-building from the industrial and political revolutions of the nineteenth century, through the Cold War and the technological revolution of the twentieth century, and that they remain relevant to both our literary and political imagination in the twenty-first century.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Comparative Literature

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Smith, Meagan Kathleen

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kaganovsky, Lilya
• Littlefield, Melissa M
• Calderwood, Eric S
• Rushing, Robert

• Science fiction
• speculative fiction
• border studies

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Meagan Smith

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/116221

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F116221