Christy Tidwell
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Humanities, Faculty Member
- More about me here: https://christymtidwell.wordpress.com/.edit
Gender and Environment in Science Fiction focuses on the variety of ways that gender and “nature” interact in science fiction films and fictions, exploring questions of different realities and posing new ones. Science fiction asks... more
Gender and Environment in Science Fiction focuses on the variety of ways that gender and “nature” interact in science fiction films and fictions, exploring questions of different realities and posing new ones. Science fiction asks questions to propose other ways of living. It asks what if, and that question is the basis for alternative narratives of ourselves and the world we are a part of. What if humans could terraform planets? What if we could create human-nonhuman hybrids? What if artificial intelligence gains consciousness? What if we could realize kinship with other species through heightened empathy or traumatic experiences? What if we imagine a world without oil? How are race, gender, and nature interrelated? The texts analyzed in this book ask these questions and others, exploring how humans and nonhumans are connected; how nonhuman biologies can offer diverse ways to think about human sex, gender, and sexual orientation; and how interpretive strategies can subvert the messages of older films and written texts.
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Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) is not typically considered an ecohorror film, despite the title’s focus on elm trees. To be fair, trees do not feature prominently in the film, much of which takes place indoors and... more
Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) is not typically considered an ecohorror film, despite the title’s focus on elm trees. To be fair, trees do not feature prominently in the film, much of which takes place indoors and underground. However, the title resonates with two environmental issues: Dutch elm disease (DED) and deforestation. By the 1980s, more than 77 million elms had died from DED, and Elm Street, “one of America’s most storied and archetypal places” (Campanella, 2003: p. 1), no longer featured elm trees. America’s archetypal Elm Street was also built on the mass destruction of the continent’s forests. This context provides a way to read the film as ecohorror. This is ecohorror grounded in human-created suburban nature and the loss of wild nature. It illustrates Bernice M. Murphy’s Suburban Gothic (2009), addressing the social constructs of suburbia and the family, but it shows how these social constructs are entwined with a desire for control of nature. Nightmare is haunted not just by Freddy Krueger but by trees, raising the spectre of the American elm (itself a ghost of virgin forests) while suppressing the knowledge of this loss. Ultimately, the gap between the title of the film and the ecological reality of the time points to an expansion of ecohorror. Stephen A. Rust and Carter Soles (2014) argue that ecohorror “assumes that environmental disruption is haunting humanity’s relationship to the non-human world” (p. 510); this film goes even further, showing–in its failure to acknowledge the absence of the elms and the forests–how silence about environmental disruption haunts humanity’s relationship to the nonhuman world and produces an ecohorror of omission.
Research Interests: Horror Film, Gothic Studies, Forests, Horror, Trees, and 3 moreEcogothic, Ecohorror, and Ecohorror Film
This article reads Lovecraft Country as a revenge narrative and considers it in the context of Carol J. Clover’s discussion of urbanoia, which focuses on “the revenge of the city on the country” (115). Lovecraft Country, despite not being... more
This article reads Lovecraft Country as a revenge narrative and considers it in the context of Carol J. Clover’s discussion of urbanoia, which focuses on “the revenge of the city on the country” (115). Lovecraft Country, despite not being a Deliverance-like story of citydwellers being attacked by vengeful rednecks, functions as an urbanoia narrative by envisioning the revenge of the oppressed and using movement from the city into the country as a way to organize “the confrontation between haves and have-nots, or even more directly, between exploiters and their victims” (126). Lovecraft Country hijacks the urbanoia narrative and uses it to reveal a blind spot in horror – and in horror criticism. Black people in the U.S. have had a different relationship to rurality and to nature, one that urbanoia narratives and discussions too often obscure or ignore. Lovecraft Country shows just how fully Black experiences and fears have been left out of discussions of revenge-based horror and writes these fears back into the genre.
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Although science fiction is often a space where differences are explored—including race, gender, species, and physical ability—age differences are not often part of this exploration. Science fictional protagonists tend to be relatively... more
Although science fiction is often a space where differences are explored—including race, gender, species, and physical ability—age differences are not often part of this exploration. Science fictional protagonists tend to be relatively young, and older characters are often subordinate characters or simple stereotypes; conversely, when characters are actually old they do not appear as such. One exception to this pattern is Elizabeth Moon’s Remnant Population (1996), which shows what a future that includes aging might look like. Ofelia, the novel’s protagonist, is 70 years old at the start of the novel, ages significantly over the course of the book, and does not easily fit familiar, gendered models of aging. Remnant Population repeatedly challenges assumptions about what it means to age as a woman and provides a useful countermodel to all-too-common representations of gendered aging.
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Ecohorror presents challenges to human supremacy in the world and critiques human intervention in and disruption of the ecosystem; this is typically accomplished via monstrous nature of an external sort – giant ants, rampaging rabbits –... more
Ecohorror presents challenges to human supremacy in the world and critiques human intervention in and disruption of the ecosystem; this is typically accomplished via monstrous nature of an external sort – giant ants, rampaging rabbits – but there are internal threats to consider as well. Mira Grant’s Parasite (2013) reflects a turn to internal sources of ecohorror, which highlights both the human connection to the rest of the natural world as well as human anxieties about this connection. This shift to the internal represents a productive move away from seeing nature simply as something out there, but this shift is also dangerous and it is unclear at this point what its costs might be. Parasite reveals this difficulty by developing the kinds of connections between human and nonhuman that are indicated by posthumanist and new materialist theories and by asking what happens when those connections come at the cost of humanity, individuality, and/or consciousness.
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Sherryl Vint argues for an embodied posthumanism, one that provides a grounding on which to base ethical actions and judgments; in this story, Paolo Bacigalupi takes this even further, arguing for the necessity of an ethical ground that... more
Sherryl Vint argues for an embodied posthumanism, one that provides a grounding on which to base ethical actions and judgments; in this story, Paolo Bacigalupi takes this even further, arguing for the necessity of an ethical ground that takes more than human embodiment into consideration but that also takes into consideration nonhuman embodiment and materiality. “The People of Sand and Slag,” therefore, engages in a complex consideration of ideas of posthumanity, embodiment, and animality and presents a powerful argument for a posthumanism that neither defines humanity in opposition to nonhuman nature and the environment nor defines nonhuman nature and the environment in terms of the human.
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Finding Nemo is an unexpected location of environmental theory that both supports popular forms of environmentalism—by encouraging identification with the animal protagonists and pointing out abuses of nature committed by humans—and... more
Finding Nemo is an unexpected location of environmental theory that both supports popular forms of environmentalism—by encouraging identification with the animal protagonists and pointing out abuses of nature committed by humans—and simultaneously reinforces problematic interactions with nature and ideologies—by prompting the commodification of specific kinds of animals and reinforcing the separation between human and nonhuman nature.
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In Jurassic Park (1993), Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm famously says that “life finds a way,” and the return of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and its sequels presages a recurring plot device in recent creature feature films in which... more
In Jurassic Park (1993), Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm famously says that “life finds a way,” and the return of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and its sequels presages a recurring plot device in recent creature feature films in which extinct creatures are returned to life. This recurring narrative shows that de-extinction is something that both fascinates and frightens viewers. “Life finds a way,” but this prospect is double-edged. It promises that extinction need not be final and offers absolution for our role in ongoing extinctions. On the other hand, the threat represented by this narrative is not species loss but the disruption of the supposedly unidirectional and predictable process of extinction, which places us, rather than other species, at risk of extinction and death. These films highlight a significant ambivalence in the culture, showing that even as we worry about species extinction, we simultaneously fear acting on those concerns, whether via large-scale projects of de-extinction or small-scale changes in daily behavior. Watching these films allows viewers a small way to assuage their guilt and also justify their lack of action.
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Feminist science fiction presents a range of responses to gender inequities in science, including the rejection of traditional science, a reversal of gendered power structures within science, and an embrace of science and representation... more
Feminist science fiction presents a range of responses to gender inequities in science, including the rejection of traditional science, a reversal of gendered power structures within science, and an embrace of science and representation of women doing science (but with no real challenge to the structures of masculinist science). Joan Slonczewski’s A Door into Ocean provides, instead, a vision of a feminist science. It neither rejects science as a way of knowing nor ignore feminist critiques of science. Slonczewski’s model of feminist science recognizes women’s scientific contributions (both within and without traditional science), challenges familiar dichotomies and hierarchies within traditional science, and attends explicitly and thoroughly to the political and ethical ramifications of its choices, narratives, and definitions.
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Her (2013) and Ex Machina (2015) explore the complicated relationship between gender and environment through the science fictional trope of AI creation. In these films, women – or the technologies we see personified and gendered as female... more
Her (2013) and Ex Machina (2015) explore the complicated relationship between gender and environment through the science fictional trope of AI creation. In these films, women – or the technologies we see personified and gendered as female – are represented as being beyond human male control; however, the environment within these films is subject to human control. These films reject familiar narratives about gendered control while failing to reject narratives about environmental control, but they take for granted human control of nonhuman nature, and their critiques of gendered control are built upon a foundation of environmental manipulation. This dynamic complicates the traditional conflation of woman and nature but also highlights the need for stronger connections between feminist and environmental concerns – even if not between women and nature.
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In his Generation Dead series, Daniel Waters uses teenage zombies to represent ongoing cultural anxieties about differences like race, disability, and homosexuality. Waters’ approach to difference and ongoing political issues through the... more
In his Generation Dead series, Daniel Waters uses teenage zombies to represent ongoing cultural anxieties about differences like race, disability, and homosexuality. Waters’ approach to difference and ongoing political issues through the fantastic is particularly useful for a YA audience; approaching these issues through a zombie story could allow the concepts and language of disability and gay and lesbian rights to influence young adult readers by analogy, gaining an audience that might otherwise be hostile to such arguments about these minority groups or that might be indifferent to real life arguments about difference. A reader who would pass up more serious fare might be drawn in by the promise of zombies, especially in the wake of the popularity of less politically engaged novels featuring the paranormal.
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Elizabeth Moon’s The Speed of Dark provides a technological vision of progress that emphasizes the necessity of a cure for autism, privileges normalcy, and develops a fairly conservative definition of human limits and possibilities. Nancy... more
Elizabeth Moon’s The Speed of Dark provides a technological vision of progress that emphasizes the necessity of a cure for autism, privileges normalcy, and develops a fairly conservative definition of human limits and possibilities. Nancy Fulda’s “Movement” develops a competing model of progress that is not built upon technological advancement but on increased understanding of autism that emphasizes the unique abilities and talents accompanying the protagonist’s autism, challenges normative definitions of human ability, and emphasizes acceptance and even celebration of difference. The contrast between these texts indicates that if we must think in terms of progress, perhaps the progress to be considered is not simply technological but social.
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This essay provides a critical overview of the intersections between biology, gender, and matter, covering the origins of modern biology, feminist critiques of science, gendered language and metaphor within the discipline, sociobiology... more
This essay provides a critical overview of the intersections between biology, gender, and matter, covering the origins of modern biology, feminist critiques of science, gendered language and metaphor within the discipline, sociobiology and neurosexism, intersubjectivity and transcorporeality, the place of the body within disability studies, as well as both intersex and transgender bodies and lives as challenges to binary biological models of sex. This overview illustrates many of the ways in which biology has been used as a tool to restrict or oppress but also the ways in which biology offers opportunities for empowerment, from including more women and other minorities in the discipline to changing the ways that discourses of biology influence people’s lives and even to modifying one’s own body through the use of biological sciences.
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Christy Tidwell reflects on the shift from teaching in person to teaching online asynchronous classes during COVID-19. This shift involved a combination of labor-based grading and using Discord as a central space for the class, both of... more
Christy Tidwell reflects on the shift from teaching in person to teaching online asynchronous classes during COVID-19. This shift involved a combination of labor-based grading and using Discord as a central space for the class, both of which aimed to center and engage students and relationships with students rather than further automate the class. Tidwell concludes by commenting on ways that these tools and techniques remain useful even when returning to the in-person classroom.
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A shirtless man embraces a beautiful, busty woman. He kneels before her and rests his head on her chest as she holds his head in place with one hand and rests the other on his muscular shoulder. They are lost in each other and in the... more
A shirtless man embraces a beautiful, busty woman. He kneels before her and rests his head on her chest as she holds his head in place with one hand and rests the other on his muscular shoulder. They are lost in each other and in the throes of desire. This is standard fare for a particular type of romance novel cover art (what Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan call “Old Skool Romance” in Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels), and it is both easily recognized and readily mocked for its clinch poses and lurid sensuality. Another common feature of these covers, less frequently remarked upon, is their incorporation of one or more animals. The cover art for Ecstasy’s Chains by F. Rosanne Bittner, which guides my initial description, features a pair of horses in the background. One white and one gold, they both rear onto their hind legs and intertwine their forelegs as the white horse stretches its head over and across the neck of the gold horse. The passion of the humans’ embrace is echoed in the passion of the horses’ engagement. Whether with a pair of animals to echo the human couple or just one animal—quite often a horse rearing behind the couple—these romance novels’ cover art returns repeatedly to the animal.1
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Christy Tidwell notes that feminist science fiction often explores the possibility of a specifically feminist science. As a major example of feminist science fiction, A Door into Ocean neither rejects scientific ways of understanding the... more
Christy Tidwell notes that feminist science fiction often explores the possibility of a specifically feminist science. As a major example of feminist science fiction, A Door into Ocean neither rejects scientific ways of understanding the world nor condones prior scientific practices. This novel suggests that a feminist science would be defined by recognition of women’s scientific contributions, challenges to hierarchical and dichotomous modes of thought, and consideration of the political and ethical ramifications of its choices, narratives, and definitions. A Door into Ocean endorses elements of traditional science that are compatible with feminist goals while simultaneously exploring the possibility of a feminist science that does not yet fully exist.
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A shirtless man embraces a beautiful, busty woman. He kneels before her and rests his head on her chest as she holds his head in place with one hand and rests the other on his muscular shoulder. They are lost in each other and in the... more
A shirtless man embraces a beautiful, busty woman. He kneels before her and rests his head on her chest as she holds his head in place with one hand and rests the other on his muscular shoulder. They are lost in each other and in the throes of desire. This is standard fare for a particular type of romance novel cover art (what Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan call “Old Skool Romance” in Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels), and it is both easily recognized and readily mocked for its clinch poses and lurid sensuality. Another common feature of these covers, less frequently remarked upon, is their incorporation of one or more animals. The cover art for Ecstasy’s Chains by F. Rosanne Bittner, which guides my initial description, features a pair of horses in the background. One white and one gold, they both rear onto their hind legs and intertwine their forelegs as the white horse stretches its head over and across the neck of the gold horse. The passion of the ...
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In an increasingly urban and suburban, as well as digitized and mediated, world, filmic representations of nature are of great importance in revealing the value and wonder of nature to generations who may not (and, in many cases,... more
In an increasingly urban and suburban, as well as digitized and mediated, world, filmic representations of nature are of great importance in revealing the value and wonder of nature to generations who may not (and, in many cases, undoubtedly will not) see and experience this nature personally. Traditional nature films provide one potentially useful way of introducing nature to these generations. However, Jim Nollman writes, in "What's Wrong with Nature Films?":year after year we watch a continuing parade of field biologists pointing and whispering and ultimately promoting the classic scientific schism between observer and observed favored by field biologists. This stereotype also demonstrates why so few films ever get made that depict nature as anything besides a vast wildlife laboratory presided over by stewarding scientists. And an entire generation of people has grown up believing that the fine art of comprehending nature is primarily a matter of astute observation ...
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One of the many threats accompanying climate change is that of deadly viruses being revived or uncovered when the permafrost melts, as in the 2016 uncovering of anthrax in Siberia. Blood Glacier (Kren Austria 2013, originally... more
One of the many threats accompanying climate change is that of deadly viruses being revived or uncovered when the permafrost melts, as in the 2016 uncovering of anthrax in Siberia. Blood Glacier (Kren Austria 2013, originally Blutgletscher) addresses this in creature feature form, telling the story of something nasty emerging from the natural world (in this case, microorganisms emerging from a melting glacier) to threaten humans and human superiority. Blood Glacier reflects a larger twenty-first-century creature-feature trope of prehistoric creatures emerging from thawing ice as well as an expansion of ecohorror beyond familiar nature-strikes-back anxieties or fears of humans becoming food for animals. Instead, the microorganisms discovered within the glacier change people (and other animals), causing mutations and leading to the creation of new combinations of species. The film juxtaposes these environmental concerns with one character’s past abortion, which comes to represent anot...
There are nearly as many definitions for science fiction as there are people writing about it, and consensus is hard to come by in the field; one common idea, however, is that science fiction (SF) is a literature of change. As such, SF... more
There are nearly as many definitions for science fiction as there are people writing about it, and consensus is hard to come by in the field; one common idea, however, is that science fiction (SF) is a literature of change. As such, SF looks to the future and emphasizes narratives of progress or, conversely, dystopian narratives of progress distorted or interrupted. Many well-known SF texts have focused on technological progress, from the beginnings of SF through the Golden Age, cyberpunk, and beyond. In the mid-twentieth century, the kinds of progress included in SF expanded to include social and cultural progress as well as technological advancements. Progress in SF texts is therefore marked not only in scientific advances but also in socio-political change. Some issues and inequalities remain unaddressed within SF, however; despite the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1991, ableism continues to be prevalent both in the real world and in the stories we tell about ourselves and our futures. Sarah Einstein argues in “The Future Imperfect” that “[t]here is too little SF written that envisions a fully accessible, universally designed future” and indicates a need for more consideration of disability in SF and a more thorough imagining of the future of physical difference. Outside SF, on the other hand, Ian Hacking has noted that within the last decade autism stories have flourished “when they were virtually non-existent a quarter century ago” (632).