Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture

Science, Fiction, Ethics

The Legacies of Ursula K. Le Guin explores how Le Guin’s fiction and essays have built a speculative ethical practice engaging indigenous knowledge and feminism, while crafting utopias in which human and other-than-human life forms enter into new relations. Her work also delineates new ways of making sense of the “science” of science fiction. The authors of this collection include renowned scholars such as Brian Attebery, Stephanie Burt and Isabelle Stengers, as well as up-and-coming specialists of Le Guin, utopian studies and indigenous literature. Their contributions provide up-to-date discussions of texts ranging from Earthsea to the fantasy trilogy Annals of the Western Shore, and touch upon well-known works such as The Dispossessed or “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” as well as more experimental writings such as Always Coming Home and the short story Ether,OR. Written in an accessible style, Legacies will appeal to any readers interested in literature, science fiction and fantasy, as well as specialists of science and technology studies, philosophy of science, ethics, indigenous studies and posthumanism.