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Ubiquitous entropy and heat death in Philip K. Dick and Pamela Zoline

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Date Issued:
2006
Summary:
My scientifically informed readings of Philip K. Dick's Ubik (1969) and Pamela Zoline's "The Heat Death of the Universe" (1967) consider entropy's multifarious meanings from both thermodynamics and information theory. Additionally, rather than relying upon overarching assumptions about the texts' cultural moment, I explore each fiction's presentation of entropy as negative or positive. For Dick, the loss of female mothering accelerates the heat death of late-capitalistic society, with entropy a negative, destructive force. Zoline, however, recognizes the injurious ramifications of entrapping women within the gender role of self-sacrificing wife/mother; her protagonist purposefully accelerates entropy production to destroy such a closed system.
Title: Ubiquitous entropy and heat death in Philip K. Dick and Pamela Zoline.
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Name(s): Kasdorf, Krista.
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Scroggins, Mark, Thesis advisor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 2006
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 79 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: My scientifically informed readings of Philip K. Dick's Ubik (1969) and Pamela Zoline's "The Heat Death of the Universe" (1967) consider entropy's multifarious meanings from both thermodynamics and information theory. Additionally, rather than relying upon overarching assumptions about the texts' cultural moment, I explore each fiction's presentation of entropy as negative or positive. For Dick, the loss of female mothering accelerates the heat death of late-capitalistic society, with entropy a negative, destructive force. Zoline, however, recognizes the injurious ramifications of entrapping women within the gender role of self-sacrificing wife/mother; her protagonist purposefully accelerates entropy production to destroy such a closed system.
Identifier: 9780542739231 (isbn), 13359 (digitool), FADT13359 (IID), fau:10209 (fedora)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2006.
Subject(s): Entropy (Information theory)
Literature and science
Science fiction, American--History and criticism
Dick, Philip K--Criticism and interpretation
Zoline, Pamela,--1941---Criticism and interpretation
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13359
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.