New ways: the pandemics of science fiction
Resource type
Journal article
Creator (person)
Morgan, Glyn
Date published
December 6, 2021
Abstract
In unprecedented times, people have turned to fiction both for comfort and for distraction, but also to try and understand and anticipate what might come next. Sales and rental figures for works of fiction about pandemics and other disease outbreaks surged in 2020, but what can pandemic science fiction tell us about disease? This article surveys the long history of science fiction's engagement with disease and demonstrates the ways in which these narratives, whether in literature or film, have always had more to say about other contemporary cultural concerns than the disease themselves. Nonetheless, the ideas demonstrated in these texts can be seen perpetuating through the science fiction genre, and in our current crisis, we have seen striking similarities between the behaviours of key individuals, and the manner in which certain events have played out. Not because science fiction these things, but because it anticipates the social structures which produce them (while at the same time permeating the culture to the extent that they become the touchstones with which the media choose to analyse current events). This paper demonstrates that science fiction can be a valuable tool to communicate widely around a pandemic, while also acting as a creative space in which to anticipate how we may handle similar events in the future.
Journal title
Interface Focus
Volume
11
Issue
6
Publisher
The Royal Society
eISSN
2042-8901
Official URL
Rights statement
In Copyright