BOOK REVIEW: Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life: The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World. Jörg Matthias Determann (New York: I. B. Taurus, 2021)

Abstract

In the past two decades science fiction and futuristic imaginaries have become increasingly more visible in the works of creators with roots in South and Southwest Asia and North Africa. Such imaginaries have materialized not only in literature, film, video games, and the visual arts more broadly, but also in architecture, urban design, and major infrastructure projects. Anglophone academic scholarship on this phenomenon has so far focused predominantly on Arabic science fiction and dystopian literature (particularly in the aftermath of the Arab Spring), Indian science fiction, and the visual aesthetics of Arab and Gulf futurisms. Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life contributes to this growing body of scholarship by providing a comprehensive and interdisciplinary history of scientific imagination concerning extraterrestrial life in “the Muslim world.”

Merve Tabur

Lecturer/Researcher

I am a scholar of comparative literature and environmental humanities, focusing on how environmental destruction is depicted in speculative fiction, film, and visual arts from the Southwest Asia/North Africa and its Anglophone diasporas.