Dr Paul March-Russell, Specialist Associate Lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature and editor of Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, has contributed an article to The Conversation on US President Donald Trump’s plans for a ‘Space Force’ from a science-fiction perspective, published today 16 August 2018.
The Conversation is an independent website consisting of news and views sourced from the academic and research community, and delivered direct to the public.
‘The rhetoric of both Pence and Trump, referring respectively to “the boundless expanse of space” and the necessity for “American dominance”, is inherently science-fictional, but of a particularly American kind,’ explains Paul in the article, who places the language and ideas in the context of the traditions of American science fiction.
Comparing Trump’s Space Force plants to Reagan’s earlier Strategic Defence Initiative in the 1980s, which became known as ‘Star Wars’, Paul concludes ‘what we can deduce from the proposal is that we are firmly in the logic of the reboot, that much loved tactic of longrunning movie franchises.’