Project(ing) Human: Representations of Disability in Science Fiction

This edited collection offers a vital critical examination of how science fiction media—spanning television, film, literature, and gaming—constructs and projects cultural ideas about disability. By analyzing narratives that inherently engage with transhumanism, altered embodiment, and the boundaries of autonomy, the essays reveal how the genre becomes a powerful site for negotiating societal attitudes toward physical and cognitive difference. The book argues that science fiction's speculative nature doesn't just reflect existing stereotypes but actively shapes our collective understanding of the disability experience, for better or worse.

What makes this volume particularly compelling is its direct confrontation with a central paradox of the genre: while often envisioning technological fixes that "cure" disability, these same stories can simultaneously challenge normative ideas about the human body and mind. The contributors provide a nuanced framework for readers to decode the complex, and frequently conflicting, messages about dependency, enhancement, and personhood embedded in popular speculative works. For fans of science fiction and students of disability studies alike, this book is an essential tool for seeing the genre's imagined futures in a startling new light, revealing how our fantasies about tomorrow are deeply entangled with our perceptions of human value today.