REWRITING SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE THROUGH THE FEMALE BODY: A FEMINIST READING OF ESCAPE BY MANJULA PADMANABHAN

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Autori principali: Ankita Das, Dr. Geeta Sahu
Natura: Recurso digital
Pubblicazione: Zenodo 2026
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author Ankita Das
Dr. Geeta Sahu
author_facet Ankita Das
Dr. Geeta Sahu
contents <p><strong>Abstract</strong><br>Indian Science Fiction in English (ISFE) as a genre has been evolving in the past few years and contemporary writing questions the relationship between knowledge, power, and gender in technologically mediated futurist societies. But despite the growing attention, there is a need to look at Science Fiction and its portrayal of the future, as to how scientific knowledge is imagined as a gendered and exclusionary system. This paper examines Manjula Padmanabhan’s Escape to demonstrate how the female body becomes a site of scientific knowledge, threat, and epistemic reordering. The study draws on feminist and science and technology studies to analyse and understand how knowledge systems are constructed, governed, and destabilised. The methodology will be a close textual analysis to analyse how knowledge is controlled and constructed through surveillance, reproductive control, and embodied knowledge. The examination argues that Meiji’s body functions as ‘forbidden knowledge’ as it destabilises the regime’s scientific authority and epistemic monopoly. Thus, this reading aims to signify how the female body is used in ISFE to question the authority of scientific rationality in a patriarchal future. By studying this, the research contributes to scholarly conversations on gendered knowledge, and the epistemic power of futurity in ISFE.<br><strong>Keywords:</strong> Indian Science Fiction, Gender and Power, Feminist Epistemology, Futurism, Embodied Knowledge.</p>
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spellingShingle REWRITING SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE THROUGH THE FEMALE BODY: A FEMINIST READING OF ESCAPE BY MANJULA PADMANABHAN
Ankita Das
Dr. Geeta Sahu
<p><strong>Abstract</strong><br>Indian Science Fiction in English (ISFE) as a genre has been evolving in the past few years and contemporary writing questions the relationship between knowledge, power, and gender in technologically mediated futurist societies. But despite the growing attention, there is a need to look at Science Fiction and its portrayal of the future, as to how scientific knowledge is imagined as a gendered and exclusionary system. This paper examines Manjula Padmanabhan’s Escape to demonstrate how the female body becomes a site of scientific knowledge, threat, and epistemic reordering. The study draws on feminist and science and technology studies to analyse and understand how knowledge systems are constructed, governed, and destabilised. The methodology will be a close textual analysis to analyse how knowledge is controlled and constructed through surveillance, reproductive control, and embodied knowledge. The examination argues that Meiji’s body functions as ‘forbidden knowledge’ as it destabilises the regime’s scientific authority and epistemic monopoly. Thus, this reading aims to signify how the female body is used in ISFE to question the authority of scientific rationality in a patriarchal future. By studying this, the research contributes to scholarly conversations on gendered knowledge, and the epistemic power of futurity in ISFE.<br><strong>Keywords:</strong> Indian Science Fiction, Gender and Power, Feminist Epistemology, Futurism, Embodied Knowledge.</p>
title REWRITING SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE THROUGH THE FEMALE BODY: A FEMINIST READING OF ESCAPE BY MANJULA PADMANABHAN
url https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19606605