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Until recently, few have critically examined how power relations and norms concerning disability and ability are depicted and negotiated in science fiction, even though many science fiction narratives seem preoccupied with non-normative bodies and minds. Likewise, in disability studies, the study of non-realist texts and questions of genre are also quite a new field of study. This chapter suggests ways in which the study of science fiction could benefit from a disability perspective by outlining some points of contact between disability studies and the study of science fiction. The chapter begins with a short introduction to disability studies and a brief overview of previous research on science fiction and disability. Drawing upon some key themes and issues within this rapidly expanding field of research, the chapter highlights some ways in which a disability perspective can be beneficial for the study of science fiction narratives. First, by applying a critique of the medical model of disability to narratives about the future. Second, reflecting on the importance to consider non-realist elements when reading and analyzing disability in science fiction. For example, by acknowledging not only the explicit presence of (realist) disabled bodies and minds, but also consider how norms and power relations related to ability and disability influence narratives even in absence of such representations.

This article explores subversion of normative time and disability in science fiction narratives through the depiction of characters experiencing time in non-normative ways, focusing on what I call characters out of time. The analysis takes inspiration from Ellen Samuels, reading these characters as “bodies of crip time,” but it also connects to other disability and/or crip scholars such as Alison Kafer and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson. It suggest a way of engaging with disability and ability in non-realist texts not only by focusing the analysis on explicit representations of characters with realistic, culturally recognizable traits of disability, but also through fantastic elements and storytelling conventions of the genre.

Humor har både potential att utmana och att upprätthålla normer, etablerade maktordningar, förgivettagna föreställningar och förtryckande strukturer, inte minst för marginaliserade grupper. I den här artikeln är syftet att undersöka humorns potential att synliggöra och utmana funktionsnormativa föreställningar. Frågan som ställs till materialet är: Hur används humor för att synliggöra och utmana funktionsnormativitet i intervjusamtal mellan personer med egna erfarenheter av funktionsnedsättningar? Materialet till undersökningen utgörs av en svensk podd, där personer med normbrytande funktionalitet intervjuas av poddmakare som också de är rullstolsburna. Podden är ett medium där förutsättningarna för samtal skiljer sig från exempelvis andra traditionella medier eftersom de inte styrs av sändningsregler som traditionella medier gör. I analysen undersöks hur samtalsdeltagarna använder absurditet, över- och underdrifter samt överraskningseffekter för att synliggöra funktionsnormativitet. De tre teman som undersöks är föreställningar om (o)möjliga subjektspositioner, narrativet om det tragiska livsödet samt funktionsfullkomlighet som ideal. En av slutsatserna som diskuteras är att humorn som används indikerar att det finns samidentifikation hos samtalsdeltagarna genom att den både visar på att deltagarna har gemensamma erfarenheter som lyfts fram som absurda, och ibland olika erfarenheter eller inställningar, vilka förhandlas fram genom att de använder humor som ett sätt hantera situationer som skulle kunna bli socialt besvärliga.

Humour has the potential to challenge or reproduce norms, established power relations, preconceived notions and oppressive structures, not least for marginalized groups. The purpose of this article is to explore humour as a potential tool to make visible and challenge normative notions about disability. The question posed to the material is: How is humour used to make visible and challenge ableism in interview conversations between people with experiences of disability? The material for this study consists of a Swedish podcast, where people with different disabilities are interviewed by podcasters who are also disabled. The podcast is a medium where the conditions for conversations differ from other traditional media because they are not governed by broadcasting rules as traditional media are. In the analysis it is examined how the participants use absurdity, exaggerations, and understatements as well as surprise effects which makes ableism visible. The three themes examined are the notions of (im)possible subject positions, the narrative of the tragic life and the able-bodied ideal. One of the conclusions discussed is that the humour used indicates that there is co-identification among the participants which both shows that the participants have common experiences that are joked about as absurd, and sometimes different experiences or attitudes, which are negotiated by using humour as a way of dealing with situations that could be socially difficult.

Humor har både potential att utmana och att upprätthålla normer, etablerade maktordningar, förgivettagna föreställningar och förtryckande strukturer, inte minst för marginaliserade grupper. I den här artikeln är syftet att undersöka humorns potential att synliggöra och utmana funktionsnormativa föreställningar. Frågan som ställs till materialet är: Hur används humor för att synliggöra och utmana funktionsnormativitet i intervjusamtal mellan personer med egna erfarenheter av funktionsnedsättningar? Materialet till undersökningen utgörs av en svensk podd, där personer med normbrytande funktionalitet intervjuas av poddmakare som också de är rullstolsburna. Podden är ett medium där förutsättningarna för samtal skiljer sig från exempelvis andra traditionella medier eftersom de inte styrs av sändningsregler som traditionella medier gör. I analysen undersöks hur samtalsdeltagarna använder absurditet, över- och underdrifter samt överraskningseffekter för att synliggöra funktionsnormativitet. De tre teman som undersöks är föreställningar om (o)möjliga subjektspositioner, narrativet om det tragiska livsödet samt funktionsfullkomlighet som ideal. En av slutsatserna som diskuteras är att humorn som används indikerar att det finns samidentifikation hos samtalsdeltagarna genom att den både visar på att deltagarna har gemensamma erfarenheter som lyfts fram som absurda, och ibland olika erfarenheter eller inställningar, vilka förhandlas fram genom att de använder humor som ett sätt hantera situationer som skulle kunna bli socialt besvärliga.

Humour has the potential to challenge or reproduce norms, established power relations, preconceived notions and oppressive structures, not least for marginalized groups. The purpose of this article is to explore humour as a potential tool to make visible and challenge normative notions about disability. The question posed to the material is: How is humour used to make visible and challenge ableism in interview conversations between people with experiences of disability? The material for this study consists of a Swedish podcast, where people with different disabilities are interviewed by podcasters who are also disabled. The podcast is a medium where the conditions for conversations differ from other traditional media because they are not governed by broadcasting rules as traditional media are. In the analysis it is examined how the participants use absurdity, exaggerations, and understatements as well as surprise effects which makes ableism visible. The three themes examined are the notions of (im)possible subject positions, the narrative of the tragic life and the able-bodied ideal. One of the conclusions discussed is that the humour used indicates that there is co-identification among the participants which both shows that the participants have common experiences that are joked about as absurd, and sometimes different experiences or attitudes, which are negotiated by using humour as a way of dealing with situations that could be socially difficult.

People with disabilities make up the largest minority group in the world (15% or 1 billion). Despite advocacy work and political advances in disability rights such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, they are still marginalized in society and disability is often considered solely a medical condition associated with personal tragedy and exclusion. Since 2016, the European Research Council has funded the DISLIFE project’s proposal to research ‘liveable disabilities’ in Sweden from the 1800s until today. In this chapter, we present the project and its results on how societal circumstances have shaped the opportunities and lives of people with disabilities across time. We discuss the project’s use of the life course concept and from ableist perspectives and propose avenues for future research. Since the project results indicate that there have been little progress over time concerning the life opportunities of people with disabilities, a paramount work is ahead to which research aware of ableism can contribute.

As previous research has shown, people with disabilities often have restricted access to adulthood and its corresponding life events (including sexuality, partnership and parenthood), both in society and in popular cultural representations. This article analyzes five contemporary Swedish fiction films with protagonists with disabilities in order to consider how and in what ways they depict romantic relationships, sexuality, and reproduction as manifestations of adulthood in normative time and life course. The aim is to analyze if ableist norms related to time, adulthood, and sexuality is confirmed or challenged in these films. Four of the five films confirmed the ableist norm and used normalizing strategies to assimilate the disability position into normative life course and timeline. One of the films challenged the ableist implications of the normative timeline thus providing the possibility of crip time. Given media representations’ powerful dissemination of cultural values it is of great importance to scrutinize its underlying cultural values.

This article aims to contribute to an understanding of marginalized bodies in science fiction narratives by analyzing how physical disability and homosexuality/bisexuality have been depicted in popular science fiction film and television. Specifically, it analyzes what types of futures are evoked through the exclusion or inclusion of disability and homo/bisexuality. To investigate these futurescapes, in for example Star Trek and The Handmaid’s Tale, the paper uses film analysis guided by the theoretical approach of crip/queer temporality mainly in dialogue with disability/crip scholar Alison Kafer.

Although narratives about the future in popular fiction occasionally imagines futures in which disability and homo/bisexuality exist the vast majority do not. This article argues that exclusion of characters with disabilities and homo/bisexual characters in imagined futures of science fiction perpetuate heteronormative and ableist normativity. It is important that fictional narratives of imagined futures do not limit portrayals to heterosexual and able-bodied people but, instead, take into account the ableist and heteronormative imaginaries that these narratives, and in extension contemporary society, are embedded in.

Moreover, it is argued that in relation to notions of progression and social inclusion in imagined futurescapes portrayals of homo/bisexuality and disability has been used as narrative devices to emphasis “good” or “bad” futures. Furthermore, homo/bisexuality has increasingly been incorporated as a sign of social inclusion and progression while disability, partly due to the perseverance of a medical understanding of disability, instead is used as a sign of a failed future. However, the symbolic value ascribed to these bodies in stories are based on contemporary views and can thus change accordingly. To change the way the future is envisioned requires challenging how different types of bodies, desires, and notions of normativity are thought about. Sometimes imaginary futures can aid in rethinking and revaluating these taken-for-granted notions of normativity.

The aim of the thesis is to explore depictions of sexuality in popular science fiction film and television through a focus on storytelling, narrative, characters and genre. The thesis analyses science fiction as a film and television genre with a focus on the conventions, interpretations, and definitions of genre as part of larger contexts. Central to the argumentation is films and television series, from Star Wars and Star Trek, to Firefly and Torchwood. The approach allows a consideration of how the storytelling conventions of science fiction are, and have been, affected by its contexts. Through a consideration of a historical de-emphasis on narrative complexity and character formation in science fiction, the thesis displays and analyses a salient tendency towards juvenile and heteronormative narratives. This tendency is represented by a concept that I call the Star’verses, through which this dominant idea of science fiction as a juvenile, techno-centred, masculine, and heteronormative genre became firmly established. This generic cluster has remained a dominant influence on science fiction film and television since the 1980s. However, as argued, a major discursive shift took place in science fiction at the turn of the millennium. This adult turn in science fiction film, and television in particular, is attributed to contextual changes, but also to the influence of television dramaturgy. It explains why science fiction in the 21st century is not as unfamiliar with depictions of sexuality as its predecessors were. This turn does not signal a total abandonment of what the Star’verses represent; it instead contributes to a change to this dominant idea of the generic identity of science fiction.

While sexuality has been disassociated from much science fiction, it is also argued that the science fiction narrative has extensive queer potential. Generic conventions, such as aliens and time travel, invite both queer readings and queer storytelling; the latter however is seldom used, especially in science fiction film. A majority of the examples of science fiction narrative that use this queer potential can be found in television. In cinema, however, this progression is remarkably slow. Therefore, the thesis analyses whether the storytelling techniques of Hollywood cinema, to which science fiction film owes much of its dramaturgy, could be considered heteronormative. A comparison is made to television dramaturgy in order to display the possibilities for the serialised, character-focused science fiction narrative. Ultimately, the thesis investigate the possibility for subversive storytelling and whether a normative use of dramaturgy needs to be overthrown in order to tell a subversive story.

By using space as an analytical tool for narratives, the article introduces the concept of Buffydale as a way to make visible the relationship between space and body in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The article focuses on how Sunnydale and Buffy mutually construct one another and on the intimate relationship between the two. In addition, it analyses how this conjunction into Buffydale further can be understood as pivotal to the other characters—in particular the vampiric body and its relationship to queer space and time. Through a comparative analysis between the alternative universe depicted in the episodes "The Wish" and "Doppelgangland" and the primary universe otherwise depicted in the series, the article aims to display this mutual construction of body and space. Insights into spatial and corporal issues of narratives grants a new perspective on a well-researched object of study such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.