Darko Suvin Explained

Region:Western Philosophy
Era:20th-century philosophy
Darko Suvin
Birth Date:1930 7, df=y
Birth Place:Zagreb, Yugoslavia
School Tradition:Zagreb University
Main Interests:Science fiction
Notable Ideas:Cognitive estrangement

Darko Ronald Suvin (born Darko Šlesinger) is a Canadian academic, writer and critic who became a professor (now emeritus[1]) at McGill University in Montreal. He was born in Zagreb, which at the time was in Kingdom of Yugoslavia, now the capital of Croatia. After teaching at the Department for Comparative Literature at the Zagreb University, and writing his first books and poems in his native language (i.e., in the standardized Croatian variety of Serbo-Croatian), he left Yugoslavia in 1967, and started teaching at McGill University in 1968.

He is best known for several major works of criticism and literary history devoted to science fiction. He was editor of Science-Fiction Studies (later renamed Science Fiction Studies) from 1973 to 1980. Since his retirement from McGill in 1999, he has lived in Lucca, Italy. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences).

In 2009, he received Croatian SFera Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction. He is also a member of the Croatian Writers Society (HDP).[2]

In 2016, Suvin published a series of memoirs in the Croatian cultural journal Gordogan on his youth as a member of the Young Communist League of Yugoslavia during the Nazi occupation of Croatia and Yugoslavia and the first years of Josip Tito's Yugoslavia. His 2016 book Splendour, Misery, and Potentialities: An X-ray of Socialist Yugoslavia (published in translation as Samo jednom se ljubi: radiografija SFR Jugoslavije in Belgrade in 2014, in two printings), an attempt at a dialectical history of socialist Yugoslavia, is widely quoted in most recent books and articles in the emerging field of "post-Yugoslav studies".

Biography

Early life

Suvin was born in Zagreb, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, on July 19, 1930, to a Croatian Jewish family of Miroslav and Truda (née Weiser) Šlesinger. In Zagreb he attended the Jewish elementary school in Palmotićeva street. In 1939 his family changed the surname from Šlesinger to Suvin due to political situation and antisemitism caused by Nazi propaganda.[3] [4] When Suvin was a young child, there was great political strife in Yugoslavia. Originally a monarchy, Yugoslavia quickly succumbed to the Fascist occupation, and then later various other types of government. In the early 1940s, before the end of World War Two, a Nazi controlled bomb exploded close to Suvin, an event that was ultimately responsible for piquing his interest in science fiction, not because of the technology behind the bomb, but because he realized in even a slightly alternative world, he might have been killed right then and there.[5] Many members of his family perished during the Holocaust, including his paternal grandparents Lavoslav and Josipa Šlesinger.[3]

Interest in literature

After World War Two, Suvin became even more interested in science fiction. He earned his PhD from Zagreb University.[6] Soon after, he published his first article, which was little more than a brief overview and survey of the SF genre. He continued to earn a living by translating a wide variety of science fiction books into his native language, including The Seedling Stars and Day of the Triffids.

In Yugoslavia during the early 1960s, Suvin published his first book, a historical introduction to, or general overview of, science fiction as a whole. The works of Asimov, Heinlein, and others were discussed in great detail, and several individual SF books were analyzed. The book also included the results of his first article initially published in 1957.[5]

Move to North America

In 1967, Suvin emigrated to North America to teach in universities. Shortly after arriving, college students in the United States were central to a counterculture energized by, among other things, the Civil Rights movement and resistance to the Vietnam War. One consequence within academia was an opening to new objects and fields of study, one of which was science fiction. At this point, Suvin's expertise was extremely desirable, and there were many educational institutions that were looking to hire him.[5]

Suvin was hired as a science fiction professor at McGill University in Montreal in 1968. About five years later, the number of students signing up for SF courses dropped significantly, leaving him to teach English and literature courses. Through his teaching career, he has published numerous works and contributed to the study of science fiction. In 1999, Suvin retired and moved to Italy, where he lives to this day.[6]

Awards

Philosophy

Science fiction

According to Suvin, works of science fiction begin with the idea of framing a hypothesis – the novum, a Latin coinage meaning "a new strange newness" that he introduced in the 1972 essay "On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre" in College English.[7] The most common of these hypotheses is likely time travel, although there are many thousands of distinct alternate realities used in books and movies that do not utilize time travel as a hypothesis. It is Suvin's opinion that some of the most commercially successful works of SF have only used this idea of framing a hypothesis as an ornament. In other words, Suvin believes that the most popular mainstream SF works, like Star Wars, are not truly SF at heart – they simply utilize the genre as a way to take advantage of the special effects and uniqueness that go along with the genre.[8]

Cognitive estrangement

In Suvin's opinion, the focus of the genre lies in encouraging new ways of thinking about human society, or to inspire those who are oppressed to resist. Suvin has labeled this idea of subversive thinking as cognitive estrangement. Those works of SF that could be characterized as using cognitive estrangement rely on no one particular hypothesis, but instead on the cognitive presentation of alternative realities that directly contradict the status quo.[8]

Bibliography

Works

References

Citations

Notes and References

  1. David Johnston, Convocation: Honorary degrees and emeritus professorships, McGill Reporter, Volume 33, No. 05, November 2, 2000
  2. News: Darko Suvin. Hrvatsko društvo pisaca (Croatian Writers Society). 2019-03-25. hr.
  3. Gordogan - kulturni magazin; Darko Suvin; Slatki dani, strašni dani (iz Memoara jednog skojevca, dio 1); stranica 25; broj 15-18, godina VI/VII, zima-jesen 2008 / zima-jesen 2009.
  4. News: Suvin. Darko. Rat je stigao na radiju. Danas. 2013-06-13. sr.
  5. Horst Pukallus, An Interview with Darko Suvin: Science Fiction and History, Cyberpunk, Russia ..., Science Fiction Studies, #54, Volume 18, Part 2, July 1991
  6. Phillip E. Wegner, Darko Suvin: A life in letters, Paradoxa, 2011
  7. Suvin, D. (1972). On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre. College English, 34(3), p.373.
  8. Victor Wallis, Introduction, Socialism and Democracy Journal, April 6, 2011

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