Women’s agency in the Dune Universe : Tracing women’s liberation through science fiction 1st ed.

Author

• Kennedy, Kara

Additional Author(s)

-

Publisher

Cham, Switzerland : Springer International Publishing, 2021

Language

English

ISBN

9783030892050

Series

Subject(s)

• FEMINISM AND LITERATURE
• SCIENCE FICTION, AMERICAN
• WOMEN IN LITERATURE

Notes

. .

Abstract

This book undertakes the first large-scale analysis of women’s agency in Frank Herbert’s six-book science fiction Dune series. Kara Kennedy explores how female characters in the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood—from Jessica to Darwi Odrade—secure control and influence through five avenues of embodied agency: mind-body synergy, reproduction and motherhood, voices, education and memory, and sexuality. She also discusses constraints on their agency, tensions between individual and collective action, and comparisons with other characters including the Mentats, Bene Tleilaxu, and Honored Matres. The book engages with second-wave feminist theories and historical issues to highlight how the series anticipated and paralleled developments in the women’s liberation movement. In this context, it addresses issues regarding sexual difference and solidarity, as well as women’s demand to have control over their bodies. Kennedy concludes that the series should be acknowledged as a significant contribution to the genre as part of both New Wave and feminist science fiction.

Physical Dimension

Number of Page(s)

1 online resource (xiii, 239 p.)

Dimension

-

Other Desc.

ill.

Summary / Review / Table of Content

Introduction: The sidelining of the women of Dune
Mind-body synergy
Reproduction and motherhood
Voices
Education and memory
Sexuality
Conclusion

Exemplar(s)

#	Accession No.	Call Number	Location	Status
1.	00223/23	813.54 Ken W	Online !	Available