Entre o tempo do sonho e o tempo do mundo: interlocuções entre antropologia e ficção científica em “Floresta é o nome do mundo” (1972), de Ursula K. Le Guin

Abstract

This dissertation discusses the possible interlocutions between Anthropology and Science Fiction, focusing on the book “The Word for World is Forest”, by the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018). To carry out this investigation, I mapped and analyzed academic works that connect science fiction studies with anthropological discussions. Throughout this mapping, as I searched for theoretical links between science fiction and Anthropology, the recurrence of references to and analyses of this writer’s literary works became evident. The justification commonly offered by these authors is that her family context influenced her writing and the creation of the fictional worlds she developed over her career – Le Guin was the daughter of Alfred Kroeber (1876-1960), an anthropologist and founder of the Anthropology Department at Berkeley, California, in the early twentieth century. Due to this proximity to the discipline – although the writer herself contested such influence – some authors have argued that her science fiction works could be characterized as exercises in “speculative anthropology”: that is, by speculating about the future, Ursula K. Le Guin composes futuristic settings and cultures with an attention similar to that of an anthropologist producing an ethnography, attending to aspects such as culture, biology, politics, gender issues, and so on. In order to narrow the scope of this research to a single literary work by Le Guin, I selected the 1972 novella “The Word for World is Forest” as the object of analysis, since it brings together themes central to Anthropology, such as issues related to colonialism, violent encounters between alterities, and the human (dis)connection with nature. Among these themes, I chose to relate to anthropological discussions the importance of dreaming both for the constitution of the Athshean Dreamer as an individual and for political practice, as well as the conflicts that arise from the actions of an anthropologist in the field within a colonial context. Methodologically, I gathered literature that explores the dialogues between Anthropology and Science Fiction, emphasizing works that analyze Ursula K. Le Guin’s writings, and I sought classical contributions that could offer theoretical support for the discussions proposed through the reading of the book.