The Science Fiction Film in Contemporary Hollywood

A Social Semiotics of Bodies and Worlds

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by Evdokia Stefanopoulou

Type

Studies

Subject

Genre > Science Fiction

Keywords

science fiction, 21st century

Publishing date

2025 (February 20, 2025)

Publisher

Bloomsbury Academic

1st publishing

2023

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 238 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-1-5013-8020-4

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Book Presentation:
The Science Fiction Film in Contemporary Hollywood focuses on the American science fiction (SF) film during the period 2001-2020, in order to provide a theoretical mapping of the genre in the context of Conglomerate Hollywood. Using a social semiotics approach in a systematic corpus of films, the book argues that the SF film can be delineated by two semiotic squares —the first one centering on the genre’s more-than-human ontologies (SF bodies), and the second one focusing on its imaginative worlds (SF worlds). Based on this theoretical framework, the book examines the genre in six cycles, which are placed in their historical context, and are analyzed in relation to cultural discourses, such as technological embodiment, race, animal-human relations, environmentalism, global capitalism, and the techno-scientific Empire. By considering these cycles —which include superhero films, creature films, space operas, among others—as expressions of the genre’s basic oppositions, the book facilitates the comparison and juxtaposition of films that have rarely been discussed in tandem, offering a new perspective on the multiple articulations of the SF film in the new millennium.

About the Author:
Evdokia Stefanopoulou teaches in the MA program “Film and Television Studies” at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Her research interest includes popular cinema, genre theory, and semiotics.

Press Reviews:
"Adapting a dynamic version of semiotic theory, Stefanopoulou's study advances both a structural and social approach to one of today's most popular film genres. The result is a novel, ambitious, and indeed impressive effort at creating a theoretical map of-and informative guide to-the dizzying varieties of millennial science fiction narratives, as well as to the multiple, often contradictory, and invariably political discourses that they evoke." ―J. P. Telotte, Professor Emeritus of Film and Media, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and editor of The Oxford Handbook of New Science Fiction Cinemas

"Genres are fluid and ever shifting, but from A.I. to X-Men, Stefanopoulou nonetheless succeeds in rigorously mapping Hollywood sf in the new millennium." ―Mark Bould, Professor of Film and Literature, University of the West of England Bristol, UK

See the publisher website: Bloomsbury Academic