Disputing The Deluge

For over 50 years, Darko Suvin has set the agenda for science fiction studies through his innovative linking of scifi to utopian studies, formalist and leftist critical theory, and his broader engagement with what he terms "political epistemology." Disputing the Deluge joins a rapidly growing renewal of critical interest in Suvin's work on scifi and utopianism by bringing together in a single volume 24 of Suvin's most significant interventions in the field from the 21st century, with an Introduction by editor Hugh O'Connell and a new preface by the author. Beginning with writings from the early 2000s that investigate the function of literary genres and reconsider the relationship between science fiction and fantasy, the essays collected here--each a brilliant example of engaged thought--highlight the value of scifi for grappling with the key events and transformations of recent years. Suvin's interrogations show how speculative fiction has responded to 9/11, the global war on terror, the 2008 economic collapse, and the rise of conservative populism, along with contemporary critical utopian analyses of the Capitalocene, the climate crisis, COVID-19, and the decline of democracy. By bringing together Suvin's essays all in one place, this collection allows new generations of students and scholars to engage directly with his work and its continuing importance and timeliness.

Featured on the 2021 Locus Recommended Reading List For over 50 years, Darko Suvin has set the agenda for science fiction studies through his innovative linking of scifi to utopian studies, formalist and leftist critical theory, and his broader engagement with what he terms "political epistemology." Disputing the Deluge joins a rapidly growing renewal of critical interest in Suvin's work on scifi and utopianism by bringing together in a single volume 24 of Suvin's most significant interventions in the field from the 21st century, with an Introduction by editor Hugh O'Connell and a new preface by the author. Beginning with writings from the early 2000s that investigate the function of literary genres and reconsider the relationship between science fiction and fantasy, the essays collected here--each a brilliant example of engaged thought--highlight the value of scifi for grappling with the key events and transformations of recent years. Suvin's interrogations show how speculative fiction has responded to 9/11, the global war on terror, the 2008 economic collapse, and the rise of conservative populism, along with contemporary critical utopian analyses of the Capitalocene, the climate crisis, COVID-19, and the decline of democracy. By bringing together Suvin's essays all in one place, this collection allows new generations of students and scholars to engage directly with his work and its continuing importance and timeliness.

This title was first published in 2001: Debate about the reality of God risks becoming an arid stalemate. An unbridgeable gulf seems to be fixed between realists, arguing that God exists independently of our language and beliefs, and anti-realists for whom God-language functions to express human spiritual ideals, with no reference to a reality external to the faith of the believer. Soren Kierkegaard has been enlisted as an ally by both sides of this debate. Kierkegaard, Language and the Reality of God presents a new approach, exploring the dynamic nature of Kierkegaard's texts and the way they undermine neat divisions between realism and anti-realism, objectivity and subjectivity. Showing that Kierkegaard's understanding of language is crucial to his practice of communication, and his account of the paradoxes inherent in religious discourse, Shakespeare argues that Kierkegaard advances a form of 'ethical realism' in which the otherness of God is met in the making of liberating signs. Not only are new perspectives opened on Kierkegaard's texts, but his own contribution to ongoing debates is affirmed in its vital, creative and challenging significance.

A historical novel by the Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz, published in 1886. It is the second volume of a three-volume series known to Poles as "The Trilogy," having been preceded by With Fire and Sword (Ogniem i mieczem, 1884) and followed by Fire in the Steppe (Pan Wołodyjowski, 1888). The novel tells a story of a fictional Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth soldier and noble Andrzej Kmicic and shows a panorama of the Commonwealth during its historical period of the Deluge, which was a part of the Northern Wars.