http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/198 2026-06-13T11:54:04Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/33421 Title: From hard science fiction to soft science fiction: The hero’s journey and visions of utopia and dystopia Authors: AlMuzairai, Yousef Ibrahim Abstract: This thesis examines the concepts and ideas found in the speculative genre known as Science Fiction (SF) across two periods, the Golden Age (c.1938s-mid- 1950s) and the New Wave (c.1964s- early- 1970s). The former was characterised by a sense of optimism, and it reflects a level of confidence in scientific innovation and rationality. This period embodies a belief in technological progress that was clearly seen in the pages of magazines such as Astonishing SF. Conversely, the New Wave period was characterised by anxiety and uncertainty brought on by the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. The period witnessed a fusing of psychology, ethics, and cultural speculation about the limits of technological and scientific progress that simultaneously promised boundless human expansion set against the threat of imminent and universal apocalyptic destruction. The increasing militarisation of science and technology led to concerns regarding the future of humanity, and SF provided a lens for readers to help them understand these changing ways. These developments also impacted the way utopias and dystopias were depicted in the genre. The following works are discussed in detail: Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood's End (1953), The City and the Stars (1956), and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Philip K. Dick’s Time Out of Joint (1959) and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959) and Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965). All these texts charted how humanity’s uncertainties, fears and anxieties grew during the 50s and into the 60s. SF imaginaries capture broader cultural fears and anxieties, especially regarding the potential afforded by rapid technological advancements. During this period the genre moves from a spirit of optimism to one of pessimism, and I will show how SF writers used techniques such as Darko Suvin’s concept of cognitive estrangement, along with subverting Joseph Campbell’s classical tropes of the Hero’s Journey (HJ), to capture this change. All the texts under discussion exhibit an increasing ambivalence (if not hostility) to technological innovations. This of course is one of the central ironies present within SF narratives as supposedly utopian worlds contain within them their own dystopian antithesis, which has been discussed by Tom Moylan (2018), Ruth Levitas (1990), and Fredric Jameson (2007). This thesis offers a more nuanced perspective and understanding of how SF attempts to reflect social and cultural changes. Specifically, it will examine how the broad change from utopian to dystopic imaginaries in the periods under discussion parallels changes in cultural views of the role of science and technology in contemporary society. The specific contribution of this thesis to the wider field of SF literary studies rests in its detailed examination of how SF writers utilised narrative techniques such as cognitive estrangement and re-worked tropes associated with the HJ to better capture how the periods under discussion were influenced by the emergence of new technology. Narrative techniques such as cognitive estrangement, along with the reworking of traditional heroic tropes and journeys, successfully capture the changing nature of culture and society in the face of unprecedented technological innovations. Through in-depth analysis, the thesis demonstrates how SF narratives not only capture changing social and political climates, but they also simultaneously offer a critical commentary on humanity’s relationship with technology, including views on its potential. As we shall see, this creates a complex dialectic where supposed utopias always carry within them their dystopian alternatives. Description: This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/33417 Title: Botanically-infused prose: An examination of nature forms in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927), The Waves (1931), and Between the Acts (1941) Authors: Clarke, Alexandra Beata Abstract: The thesis examines how Virginia Woolf’s nature writing in Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, The Waves and Between the Acts illustrates her, and her characters’, engagements with nature. With a focus on Woolf’s creative relationship with nature, the thesis looks at the naturalistic and nature writing context, autobiographical material, forms of nature, naturalistic horticulture, the natural sciences and the natural environment. The thesis considers how Woolf’s own horticultural knowledge, and her observations of garden techniques used by family and friends, had a powerful impact on her establishment of naturalistic scenes. The thesis explores how Woolf’s physical engagement with and her appreciation of the tangibility of nature contribute to an investigation into the significance of being aware of the interconnectedness of ecosystems that support both human and non-human beings. The research therefore draws on the works of Woolfian critics who capture Woolf’s horticultural and environmental lines of thought and enters into dialogue with existing eco-criticism on Woolf and her work. The thesis argues that Woolf, by observing and interacting with the ecological web of life, goes so far as to map out this human and non-human relationship as a foundational pattern of nature forms in the above-mentioned selection of works. The close reading of the choice of four novels is conducted with an emphasis placed on Woolf’s use of the four nature form types: formal design, naturalistic gardens, rurality, and estate grounds. The thesis contributes to existing and current research, in the combined fields, by adopting a scale of planting styles which is drawn from horticultural and landscape design terminology. This range of styles that stretches from the inner domesticity of formal design to the outer extension into the ‘wild’ is then used as a structural method for discussing and evaluating Woolf’s expression of environmentalism and her exploration into how energy is exchanged between the beings and phenomena that exist as part of these habitat ecosystems. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/32383 Title: Timeless: Wings ascend forever – novel extract and gothic reflections: The gothic double and double identities in timeless: Wings ascend forever and R. L. Stevenson’s the strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), a reflective thesis Authors: Charles-Edwards, Karina Abstract: This thesis includes chapters one to nine of a novel and a critical reflective essay. My novel Timeless: Wings Ascend Forever is a neo-Victorian Gothic Fantasy inspired by R. L. Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). The novel examines the double identities of the protagonists James and Seraph and explores the moral ambiguity of the characters in a Victorian setting. Through an analysis of the novel as a significant addition to the neo- Victorian gothic and fantasy genres, this critical thesis underscores the importance of reassessing the gothic motif of doubling in both contemporary and forthcoming literary works. The reflective essay focuses on both the novel and Jekyll and Hyde in the context of gothic reflections between the Victorian past and the contemporary present. It examines how double identities interact and how these identities are represented in late-Victorian and neo- Victorian gothic works. This thesis critically reflects on the novel in relation to its key gothic intertexts. The first chapter of the reflective essay explores the types of genres and narrative structures that my novel encounters and the purpose of using the themes and tropes of said genres in relation to the representation of double identities. The second chapter is a comparative study that analyses the novel alongside Jekyll and Hyde in terms of the texts’ representations of double identities, reflecting on questions of moral ambiguity and degeneration. This chapter also reflects on my writing choices and demonstrates the relationship between double identities in contemporary (textual and filmic) reworkings of Victorian gothic fiction and fantasy fiction. This thesis explores the limitations of the gothic double and the implications of double identities in relation to attempts to differentiate between reality and fantasy, considering questions of historical accuracy, myths, and fantastical elements that are central to the construction of my novel and its intertextual relationship with Jekyll and Hyde. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Master of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/31719 Title: Checking my body for signs of life: A novel – ‘I think I hated her. I also love her.’ A creative and critical analysis of maternal ambivalence as experienced by the adult daughter Authors: Pizzey, Rebecca Geena Abstract: This thesis comprises a full-length novel, entitled Checking My Body for Signs of Life, and an accompanying critical exegesis. The former falls under the genre of literary fiction, and follows thirty-two-year-old Sky, who, along with her twin sister Jess, is trying to come to terms with the fact that her abusive mother Kelsie has just died. Sky’s attempts to navigate her mother’s death see her confront her traumatic upbringing and subsequent behaviours, the foundations of which are the ambivalence felt between her and her mother. Resultingly, the critical exegesis explores this link, being underpinned by one central question: can daughters ever really know their mothers? To answer this, particular focus is paid to the relationship between maternal ambivalence and first, female hunger, then second, female sexuality, owing to the fact that, for Sky, hunger and sex are two experiences invariably influenced by her mother, in tandem with heteropatriarchal conditioning. My inquiry is based on close analysis of Checking My Body for Signs of Life; in particular, the development of the creative decisions behind it. It also discusses the three main ways my research informed the book: the creative representation of maternal ambivalence as inevitable; maternal ambivalence as situated within heteropatriarchy; and the idea of maternal selves as concealed or ‘split’. The critical essay draws on feminist (Angel 2021; Febos 2021 and 2022; Rich 1976; Srinivasan 2021), psychoanalytic (Parker 1995; Winnicott 1964 and 1994), and fat-activist (Gay 2017; Gordon 2020; Hornbacher 1998; Orbach 1978) approaches. With reference to Donald Winnicott and Adrienne Rich’s representations of maternal ambivalence, Chapter One argues in favour of the existence of private and public ‘selves’, and how the gap between the two inevitably leads to ambivalence. Chapter Two discusses how literal and symbolic hunger is born from ambivalence, contending that the mother informs the daughter’s sense of her ‘self’ as a hungry person within a heteropatriarchal society. Chapter Three examines female sexuality, with a focus on the ambivalence that inevitably – and, it argues, crucially – resides within desire. This thesis concludes with reflection on how the very process of conducting research or producing a thesis is itself an exercise in ambivalence, owing to a requisite degree of enquiry and curiosity. Description: This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z