I don’t want the future to be female. I want it to be for everyone.

Lisa Yaszek

In a fascinating episode that covers everything from telepathic matriarchies to lesbian vampire fiction, academic Lisa Yaszek chats to us about the history of women writers in science fiction. Why are so few remembered? What did they write? How did they shape the genre we know today? Listen on…

Mentioned in this episode:

  • Leslie F. Stone, The Conquest of Gola; Out of the Void
  • Clare Winger Harris, A Baby on Neptune
  • Judith Merril
  • Alice Eleanor Jones, Created He Them
  • Mary Shelley
  • Pamela Sargent
  • Joanna Russ, How to Suppress Women’s Writing
  • Margaret Brundage
  • Edythe D. Eyde “Tigrina”
  • Anne McCaffrey
  • James Tiptree Jr.
  • N. K. Jemisin
  • Lilith Lorraine
  • Samuel R. Delany
  • Nancy Kress
  • Thea von Harbou, Metropolis
  • Barbarella
  • Flash Gordon
  • Star Trek

Lisa Yaszek

Lisa Yaszek is Professor of Science Fiction Studies in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, where she researches and teaches science fiction as a global language crossing centuries, continents, and cultures. She is particularly interested in issues of gender, race, and science and technology in science fiction across media as well as the recovery of lost voices in science fiction history and the discovery of new voices from around the globe. Yaszek’s books include The Self-Wired: Technology and Subjectivity in Contemporary American Narrative (Routledge 2002/2014); Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women’s Science Fiction (Ohio State, 2008); and Sisters of Tomorrow: The First Women of Science Fiction (Wesleyan 2016). Her ideas about science fiction as the premiere story form of modernity have been featured in The Washington PostFood and Wine Magazine, and USA Today and on the AMC miniseries, James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction. A past president of the Science Fiction Research Association, Yaszek currently serves as an editor for the Library of America and as a juror for the John W. Campbell and Eugie Foster Science Fiction Awards.