Degeneration and Devolution: Fin de Siecle Visions
of Nature, Science, and Society
Georges Méliès, A Trip to the Moon (1902)
Georges Méliès (1861 – 1939)
magician turned filmmaker
invented many special optical effects
made first horror and science fiction films
Established iconography of science fiction film genre
How might these images affect the way we understand science
fiction today?
Scientific context: Evolution
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744 – 1829):
use/disuse theory
inheritance of acquired characteristics
Zoological Philosophy: Exposition with Regard to the Natural
History of Animals (1809)
Charles Lyell (1797 – 1875)
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 – 1913)
Natural environment shaping evolutionary change
Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)
Galapagos Islands
Variation in finches
How and why do these birds differ?
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or
the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life
(1859)
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871)
“Natural Selection”
Adapt to nature to survive
Sexual selection
Implications of Darwin’s “Natural Selection”:
1. Humans not special: just another animal
2. Adaptation is key to survival
3. Life is struggle: constant struggle with environment
4. “Natural Selection” not a moral framework
Reaction to Darwinism
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825 – 1895)
Man’s Place in Nature (1863)
Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903)
Social Darwinism
Principles of Biology (1864): “survival of the fittest”
Paradox of Darwinism?
Civilization encourages weakness (to adapt)
Degeneration
Max Nordau, Degeneration (1892)
Cultural context: Fin de Siecle
Fin de Siecle (“end of the century”)
Aestheticism: Art for Art’s Sake
Oscar Wilde: Aesthete (caricature):
http://victoriancontexts.pbworks.com/f/1203307800/Oscar%20Wil
de%20Punch.JPG
Social context: external divides
Industrial Revolution
Class divide
The Labour Question – the Sphinx
Social context: internal divides
Victorian Dualisms
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(1886)
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896)
Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) & Josef Breuer (1842 – 1925):
Studies in Hysteria (1895)
Herbert George Wells (1866 – 1946)
Biography
Thomas Henry Huxley
Attitude toward science
Hard Science Fiction vs. Soft Science Fiction
Verne: father of Hard SF
Wells: father of Soft SF
The Time Machine (1895)
Time Traveller: character sketch?
Questions of human nature
E.M. Forster, “The Machine Stops” (1909)
Extrapolation: present technology into future
Early representation of Internet
Role of technology on our lives?