Science Fiction and Politics: the Ambivalent Utopia of the 1970s

Journal title MONDO CONTEMPORANEO
Author/s Lorenzo Benadusi
Publishing Year 2023 Issue 2022/2-3 Language Italian
Pages 25 P. 263-287 File size 247 KB
DOI 10.3280/MON2022-002012
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In the 1970s, with the enormous success of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the science fiction boom made this genre the most suitable for identifying and showing future scenarios. Sf universe seems to anticipate tomor-row through imagination. When in March 1977 the magazine Robot publishes the article "SF and Politics", a lively debate explodes on the characteristics of progres-sive and conservative science fiction. The controversy favors a polarization from which the experience of the right-wing fanzine Dimensione cosmica and of the ex-treme-left group Un’ambigua Utopia arises. The essay reconstructs the history of this branch of the 1977 movement, which uses science fiction to initiate a more general reflection on the future of politics and on the end of hope in a better world.

Keywords: Science fiction, Fandom, 1977 protest movement, Extraparlamentary left, Popular culture.

Lorenzo Benadusi, Fantascienza e politica: l’ambigua utopia degli anni Settanta in "MONDO CONTEMPORANEO" 2-3/2022, pp 263-287, DOI: 10.3280/MON2022-002012