The Permanent Struggle for Racial Justice in the USA: Interpreting Derrick Bell’s 'The Space Traders'

Lee-Price, Simon (2023) The Permanent Struggle for Racial Justice in the USA: Interpreting Derrick Bell’s 'The Space Traders'. Zeitschrift für Fantastikforschung, 10 (1). pp. 1-25.

Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)

Abstract

This paper offers a reading of scholar-activist and critical race theorist Derrick Bell’s controversial science fiction short story 'The Space Traders', first published in 1989, in which the overwhelming majority of white Americans vote to hand over the African American population to visiting extraterrestrials in exchange for a much-needed financial bailout and advanced technology. This paper considers the story’s evolution from a pedagogical text used in law classrooms to raise awareness about racism and stimulate debate; its significance as fiction in Bell’s multiple-story world and one of a dialogical set of texts which includes an epilogue and a sequel; and its deployment of science fiction themes, conventions, and devices. The paper argues that 'Space Traders' contributes to contemporary debates about the afterlife of slavery and the fight for racial justice by making racism’s unfolding history manifest in the here-and-now to encourage a mode of resistance which is grounded in Bell’s personal ethics of struggle and which emphasises ongoing dialogic exchange.

Item Type:	Article
Depositing User:	Dr Simon Lee-Price
Date Deposited:	25 Jan 2023 08:41
Last Modified:	25 Jan 2023 08:41
URI:	https://bnu.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/18655

Actions (login required)

Edit Item