Project Summary

Science fiction is an important source of technological innovation, and those who work with it have the intergenerational mission of improving the life of the people from a scientific standpoint and build China into leading power in science and technology.
Li Yuanchao, former vice-president of the PRC

Chinese-language SF is everywhere nowadays, but how did it get "there"? This project examines the recent rise of SF from China by zeroing in on the linkages between science-fictional speculation in stories, novels, and films; their networks of discursive and material circulation; and the geographies they define.

To this aim, we advance “cultural logistics” as a conceptual framework that articulates the nexus between the discursive, material, and spatial aspects of Chinese SF. This project is guided by four objectives:

To advance the study of SF by foregrounding how this genre, in the proper context, can foster unique networks of knowledge production and circulation;
To strengthen the field of literary geography via a twofold methodology that combines literary analysis with ethnographical insight on the life and “afterlife” of SF beyond the texts;
To innovate the notion of “cultural logistics” as a conceptual framework that links the materialist dimension of logistics to the discursive framings and ideological underpinnings that rationalize its operations; and
To foreground the geopolitical dimension of the cultural-logistical networks of science fiction by focusing on the Chinese state’s attempts to incorporate SF discourse into its propaganda projects.

Integrating inputs from the fields of science fiction studies, literary geography, logistics and geopolitics, we ultimately ask: Why SF seems particularly suitable for articulating and reinforcing China’s geopolitical aspirations, and how is this genre mobilized to serve this purpose?