ABSTRACT
The introduction discusses Connie Willis’s theme of historical amnesia regarding disasters and analyzes reasons for the dearth of academic criticism on Willis, in spite of her impressive array of awards. Critics have had difficulty placing Willis’s fiction within science fiction (SF) for five reasons that, in turn, make her especially relevant and valuable to the genre now: (1) Willis’s gender combined with her perceived tendency to write “soft” SF (a gendered category itself, at times) has been a significant factor in her critical reception; (2) the ways her fiction dramatizes the uncertainties in the process of knowledge-making within science; (3) the historical focus of her fiction, which makes it especially resonant with trauma studies, especially trauma-informed posthumanist ethics; (4) her engagement with religious themes even as she explores doubt, which aligns her with postsecular studies; (5) her proficiency in both comic and serious modes, which underscores the need for both in a time of disaster. The introduction discusses each of these characteristics of Willis’s fiction and suggests that they make her indispensable to a full and inclusive portrait of SF.
