Enchanted reason: Science fiction, print capitalism and the magic of anthropology.

SCIENCE fiction; ANTHROPOLOGY; CAPITALISM; PSYCHIC ability; MAGIC

Science fiction is a privileged site to study the magic of capitalism. On the one hand, an anthropology of science fiction asks questions about how to characterize science fiction socially and culturally. It should resolve these questions by acknowledging that its first recognizable manifestation occurs when the fictionalization of science, fed by the confusion science produces about life and morality, is brought together with the drive to commercialize such confusion in print capitalism, and in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) in particular. On the other, it can then show that anthropology itself becomes (with geography and archaeology) one of the most frequently fictionalized sciences in early science fiction - more in particular, anthropology's focus on the magic of psychic powers and ancient secrets that it seeks out in remote parts of the world. Contrary to the obsession with futuristic technology, which properly belongs to a later phase of science fiction, it is neither the attractions of fact nor the persistence of belief that explain capitalism's magic, but the uncertainty generated by their juxtaposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]