Research output per year
Research output per year
Abstract
The TV set shouted, ‘ – duplicates the halcyon days of the pre-Civil War Southern states! Either as body servants or tireless field hands…. [a] loyal, trouble-free companion’ for all settlers.
‘I think what I and my family of three noticed most of all was the dignity… Having a servant you can depend on… I find it reassuring.’ (Dick 1999: 16-17)
No, not a neo-Confederate promise to secessionists fleeing a multicultural United States and a testimony from a happy slave-owner, but a fictional advert promising a robot slave to any human prepared to abandon a post-apocalyptic America for a new settlement on Mars, backed up with a Martian emigrant extolling the virtues of her robot factotum. Like many of Philip K. Dick’s novels, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) offers a philosophical exploration of such themes as consciousness, emotion and the nature of humanity. As important, it operates as a commentary on the response of slaves to servitude and as a quasi-slave narrative that sheds light on race relations in the United States.
‘I think what I and my family of three noticed most of all was the dignity… Having a servant you can depend on… I find it reassuring.’ (Dick 1999: 16-17)
No, not a neo-Confederate promise to secessionists fleeing a multicultural United States and a testimony from a happy slave-owner, but a fictional advert promising a robot slave to any human prepared to abandon a post-apocalyptic America for a new settlement on Mars, backed up with a Martian emigrant extolling the virtues of her robot factotum. Like many of Philip K. Dick’s novels, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) offers a philosophical exploration of such themes as consciousness, emotion and the nature of humanity. As important, it operates as a commentary on the response of slaves to servitude and as a quasi-slave narrative that sheds light on race relations in the United States.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 44-61 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2020 |
Keywords
- Science fiction
- Philip K Dick
- Racism
- Androids
- San Francisco
- Race
Research output
- 1 Article
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Roads and Racism: The Dialectics of Infrastructure in Philip K. Dick’s Marin Novels
Street, J., 2 Sept 2025, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Critique - Studies in Contemporary Fiction. p. 1-14 14 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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