The Creolizing Genre of SF and the Nightmare of Whiteness in John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?"

The alien in science fiction has not often been seen as part of an imperial colonial discourse. By examining John W. Campbell’s founding golden age SF text, “Who Goes There?” (1938), this paper explores the ways in which the alien adheres to an invisible mythos of whiteness that has come to be seen...

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Autor principal:	Bernabe S. Mendoza
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Alfredo Mac Laughlin 2018
Materias:	creolization dualism whiteness colonialism purity alien racism racial paranoia campbell infection Philosophy (General) B1-5802 Literature (General) PN1-6790
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/5d54e8ef51e3411caa581b5843e6a627
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:5d54e8ef51e3411caa581b5843e6a6272021-11-10T20:13:37ZThe Creolizing Genre of SF and the Nightmare of Whiteness in John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?"2573-881Xhttps://doaj.org/article/5d54e8ef51e3411caa581b5843e6a6272018-06-01T00:00:00Zhttps://jsfphil.org/vol-1/mendoza-the-creolizing-genre-of-sf/https://doaj.org/toc/2573-881XThe alien in science fiction has not often been seen as part of an imperial colonial discourse. By examining John W. Campbell’s founding golden age SF text, “Who Goes There?” (1938), this paper explores the ways in which the alien adheres to an invisible mythos of whiteness that has come to be seen through a colonizing logic as isomorphic with the human. Campbell’s alien-monster comes to disseminate and invade both self and world and as such serves as an interrogation of what whites have done through colonization. It is thus part and parcel of imperial domination and discourse and appears as the very nightmare of whiteness in the form of its liminal and estranged shadow side. Part of what has made Campbell’s text so influential is that it offers a new type of alien invasion in the figure of “contagion,” which speaks “to the transition from colonial to postcolonial visions of modernity and its attendant catastrophes” (Rieder), and which can be further examined as a race metaphor in American SF—indeed, as the white man’s fear of racial mixing that has a long and dehumanizing history. Through its threat of mixture, I read the alien as a creolizing figure that both troubles and undoes the white/black, human/nonhuman binary in science fiction, which I also read as being a creolizing, i.e., hybrid and plastic, genre.Bernabe S. MendozaAlfredo Mac Laughlinarticlecreolizationdualismwhitenesscolonialismpurityalienracismracial paranoiacampbellinfectionPhilosophy (General)B1-5802Literature (General)PN1-6790ENJournal of Science Fiction and Philosophy, Vol 1, Pp 1-16 (2018)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	creolization dualism whiteness colonialism purity alien racism racial paranoia campbell infection Philosophy (General) B1-5802 Literature (General) PN1-6790
spellingShingle	creolization dualism whiteness colonialism purity alien racism racial paranoia campbell infection Philosophy (General) B1-5802 Literature (General) PN1-6790 Bernabe S. Mendoza The Creolizing Genre of SF and the Nightmare of Whiteness in John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?"
description	The alien in science fiction has not often been seen as part of an imperial colonial discourse. By examining John W. Campbell’s founding golden age SF text, “Who Goes There?” (1938), this paper explores the ways in which the alien adheres to an invisible mythos of whiteness that has come to be seen through a colonizing logic as isomorphic with the human. Campbell’s alien-monster comes to disseminate and invade both self and world and as such serves as an interrogation of what whites have done through colonization. It is thus part and parcel of imperial domination and discourse and appears as the very nightmare of whiteness in the form of its liminal and estranged shadow side. Part of what has made Campbell’s text so influential is that it offers a new type of alien invasion in the figure of “contagion,” which speaks “to the transition from colonial to postcolonial visions of modernity and its attendant catastrophes” (Rieder), and which can be further examined as a race metaphor in American SF—indeed, as the white man’s fear of racial mixing that has a long and dehumanizing history. Through its threat of mixture, I read the alien as a creolizing figure that both troubles and undoes the white/black, human/nonhuman binary in science fiction, which I also read as being a creolizing, i.e., hybrid and plastic, genre.
format	article
author	Bernabe S. Mendoza
author_facet	Bernabe S. Mendoza
author_sort	Bernabe S. Mendoza
title	The Creolizing Genre of SF and the Nightmare of Whiteness in John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?"
title_short	The Creolizing Genre of SF and the Nightmare of Whiteness in John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?"
title_full	The Creolizing Genre of SF and the Nightmare of Whiteness in John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?"
title_fullStr	The Creolizing Genre of SF and the Nightmare of Whiteness in John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?"
title_full_unstemmed	The Creolizing Genre of SF and the Nightmare of Whiteness in John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?"
title_sort	creolizing genre of sf and the nightmare of whiteness in john w. campbell's "who goes there?"
publisher	Alfredo Mac Laughlin
publishDate	2018
url	https://doaj.org/article/5d54e8ef51e3411caa581b5843e6a627
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The Creolizing Genre of SF and the Nightmare of Whiteness in John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?"

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