Speculative Fiction is about viewing the world in different ways and imagining new interactions between people. Perhaps this is why so many authors have been attracted to SF as a place for reexamining gendered ideas and gender interactions. In this episode of Speculating Canada on Trent Radio, I note a few powerful Canadian feminist SF authors such as Nalo Hopkinson and Hiromi Goto. In particular, I examine the Canadian contributions to the collection Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology edited by Jeff and Anne Vandermeer.

This episode explores ideas of reproduction, heterosexism, imbalances in gendered power. This issue explores the power of speculative fiction to disrupt patriarchal assumptions about women’s bodies.

I apply some of Joanna Russ’ ideas from “What Can a Heroine Do? or Why Women Can’t Write” (that explores the possibilities of a feminist Speculative Fiction and examines the feminist potential in speculative fiction) to the analysis of speculative fiction overall, but particularly to the work of Nalo Hopkinson and Hiromi Goto.

You can listen to this episode of Speculating Canada on Trent Radio at the link below.

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This audio file was originally broadcast on Trent Radio, and I would like to thank Trent Radio for their continued support. I would also like to thank Dwayne Collins for his consistent tech support and help with the intricacies of creating audio files.

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