Sami Ahmad Khan – författare

The Speculative Route explores speculative traditions and science fictional modes across South and Southwest Asia and North Africa (SSWANA), examining their historical connections, inter and intra-regional entanglements, overlaps, and differences. Conceptualizing science fiction and fantasy (SFF) as a mode rather than genre, this volume challenges the putative boundaries between literary and genre fiction through critical studies and essays focusing on SFF from Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. It demonstrates the ways in which science fictional modes of thinking and imagination function as critical tools for addressing social, cultural, and political issues beyond genre conventions and expectations. Bringing together articles by leading scholars of SFF and think-pieces by acclaimed authors of contemporary SF, this volume focuses on central themes such as the relationship between aesthetics and politics, alterity, worldbuilding, memory, trauma, colonialism and decolonization, ecology, gender, religion, and mythopoetics. It engages with the past, present, and future of speculative traditions in SSWANA, and compares the visions that emerge from these seemingly disparate––but historically connected––entities. Part of the Studies in Global Genre Fiction series, this volume will be of great interest to academics, students, and practitioners in the fields of genre studies (notably, SF, SFF), comparative literature, media and popular culture, area studies, postcolonial studies, and future studies, as well as to readers who are interested in exploring SFF works from the Global South.

The Speculative Route explores speculative traditions and science fictional modes across South and Southwest Asia and North Africa (SSWANA), examining their historical connections, inter and intra-regional entanglements, overlaps, and differences. Conceptualizing science fiction and fantasy (SFF) as a mode rather than genre, this volume challenges the putative boundaries between literary and genre fiction through critical studies and essays focusing on SFF from Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. It demonstrates the ways in which science fictional modes of thinking and imagination function as critical tools for addressing social, cultural, and political issues beyond genre conventions and expectations. Bringing together articles by leading scholars of SFF and think-pieces by acclaimed authors of contemporary SF, this volume focuses on central themes such as the relationship between aesthetics and politics, alterity, worldbuilding, memory, trauma, colonialism and decolonization, ecology, gender, religion, and mythopoetics. It engages with the past, present, and future of speculative traditions in SSWANA, and compares the visions that emerge from these seemingly disparate––but historically connected––entities. Part of the Studies in Global Genre Fiction series, this volume will be of great interest to academics, students, and practitioners in the fields of genre studies (notably, SF, SFF), comparative literature, media and popular culture, area studies, postcolonial studies, and future studies, as well as to readers who are interested in exploring SFF works from the Global South.

India is mutating – and its Science Fiction with it. Star Warriors of the Modern Raj is a critical catalogue of contemporary India’s anglophone SF, a path-breaking work that flits between texts, vantage points and frameworks. An alternative to a Eurocentric perspective of SF, this study avoids essentialising definitions and delves into how the world of SF (text) intersects with that of the writer/reader. Fusing paradigms of Science Fiction Studies, South Asian Studies and Postcolonial Studies, among others, the book explicates how India and its SF negotiate one another. It evolves a ‘transMIT thesis’ to analyse how mythology (M), ideology (I) and technology (T) contour Indian SF and its fictional reimaginings. This study identifies the manifestations of divine beings within SF as differing epistemological categories, locates the modes of marginalisation within Indian popular imagination as altars of alterity, before proceeding to analyse how newer technologies engage with socio-political anxieties in and through SF.

Interested in learning about Science Fiction and South Asia? Click on the link below to read Mithila Review interview with Sami Ahmad Khan where he discusses his upcoming volume Star Warriors of the Modern Raj. https://mithilareview.com/ahmad_03_21/

India is mutating – and its Science Fiction with it. Star Warriors of the Modern Raj is a critical catalogue of contemporary India’s anglophone SF, a path-breaking work that flits between texts, vantage points and frameworks. An alternative to a Eurocentric perspective of SF, this study avoids essentialising definitions and delves into how the world of SF (text) intersects with that of the writer/reader. Fusing paradigms of Science Fiction Studies, South Asian Studies and Postcolonial Studies, among others, the book explicates how India and its SF negotiate one another. It evolves a ‘transMIT thesis’ to analyse how mythology (M), ideology (I) and technology (T) contour Indian SF and its fictional reimaginings. This study identifies the manifestations of divine beings within SF as differing epistemological categories, locates the modes of marginalisation within Indian popular imagination as altars of alterity, before proceeding to analyse how newer technologies engage with socio-political anxieties in and through SF.

Interested in learning about Science Fiction and South Asia? Click on the link below to read Mithila Review interview with Sami Ahmad Khan where he discusses his upcoming volume Star Warriors of the Modern Raj. https://mithilareview.com/ahmad_03_21/