Philip K. Dick : contemporary critical interpretations

Author(s)

• Umland, Samuel J.

Bibliographic Information

Philip K. Dick : contemporary critical interpretations

edited by Samuel J. Umland

（Contributions to the study of science fiction and fantasy, no. 63）

Greenwood Press, 1995

Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [207]-219) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book contains 11 essays and a comprehensive bibliography. The essays reveal the extent to which Philip K. Dick's personal obsessions pre-figured postmodernist concerns with humanity's self-alienation, cultural and personal paranoia, and the politics of simulation, deceit, and self-deception. The contributors reveal how Dick's ontological concerns, stated in his repeated questioning of What is real?, are also political concerns. Thus, they examine the philosophical and religious foundations on which his work rests, offering much-needed arguments which reveal both his philosophical depth and the extent to which he drew from esoteric and occult religions. His cultural critique also receives significant exposition, as the contributors reveal how Dick's fiction enacts the larger cultural struggles of cold war America, with its conflicting private visions and public realities, and its personal and political loyalties. The contributors argue for the significance of heretofore neglected or marginalized texts of Dick as well, including in their discussions many early short stories from the early 1950s and neglected novels of the mid-1960s, arguing that there is a need to understand how Dick shaped (or misshaped) his fictions so as to reimagine the life of his society.

Table of Contents

Introduction by Samuel J. Umland Towards a Theory of Paranoia: The Science Fiction of Philip K. Dick by Carl Freedman Dianoia/Paranoia: Dick's Double "Impostor" by Neil Easterbrook Worlds of Chance and Counterfeit: Dick, Lem, and the Preestablished Cacophony by Karl Wessel Philip K. Dick and the Nuclear Family by Christopher Palmer "To Flee from Dionysus": Enthousiasmos from "Upon the Dull Earth" to VALIS by Samuel J. Umland The Swiss Connection: Psychological Systems in the Novels of Philip K. Dick by Anthony Wolk Unrequited Love in We Can Build You by Rebecca A. Umland "What is this sickness?": "Schizophrenia" and We Can Build You by Gregg Rickman "Man Everywhere in Chains": Dick, Rousseau, and The Penultimate Truth by Merritt Abrash Two Cases of Conscience: Loyalty and Race in The Crack in Space and Counter-Clock World by Jake Jakaitis Chinese Finger-traps, or "A Perturbation in the Reality Field": Paradox as Conversion in Philip K. Dick's Fictions by Michael Feehan Bibliography Index

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

• NCID: BA25262940
• ISBN:
  • 0313292957
• LCCN: 94029271
• Country Code: us
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: Westport, Conn.
• Pages/Volumes: viii, 228 p.
• Size: 25 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : PS3554.I3
  • DC20 : 813/.54
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Dick, Philip K. -- Criticism and interpretation
  • LCSH : Science fiction, American -- History and criticism
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BA00197179