Article on Science Fiction by RCAH’s Eric Aronoff Published in Scholarly Journal
March 21, 2024 - Maren Case '24
- RCAH professor’s article published in global anthology.
- “The ideas in the article have definitely emerged from that teaching and those great conversations with RCAH students.”
- Science fiction comes to the academic forefront.
By Maren Case ’24 
Many consider science fiction an enjoyable pastime, but RCAH Associate Professor Eric Aronoff takes that affinity even further–to the world of academic scholarship.
Aronoff’s recent publication, Aliens, Anthropologists, and American Indians: Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, Culture, and Difference in Midcentury US Modernism, appears in Volume 69 of MFS Modern Fiction Studies, a leading journal in the field of literary modernism. It is published by the Johns Hopkins University Press as part of an ongoing science fiction anthology.
The article inspects the vast intersections of anthropology and science fiction. With a concentrated focus on Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, Aronoff uncovers new conceptions of culture, assimilation, ethnography, and plural systems of meaning employed by both artists and anthropologists.
“The article is part of a larger book project on anthropology and science fiction,” he noted. “The pandemic had a huge impact on academic publishing, and this article was actually accepted by MFS in the summer of 2021. I’m happy that it is finally out in the world!”
As it is dually inspired by Aronoff’s memories and subsequent work with RCAH students, this article is an artifact of culture itself.
“I grew up reading Ray Bradbury, and it has been such fun being able to teach his work as part of my science fiction courses in RCAH over the past 17 years,” he recounted. “The ideas in the article have definitely emerged from that teaching and those great conversations with RCAH students. I’m glad that it has finally appeared in print!”
Aronoff’s research focuses on science fiction, nineteenth-and early twentieth-century American literature, anthropology, theories of culture, race and nation, literature and the environment. His book Composing Cultures: Modernism, American Literary Studies, and the Problem of Culture, was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2013.
Aronoff’s article, Aliens, Anthropologists, and American Indians: Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, Culture, and Difference in Midcentury US Modernism, is available to read in MFS Modern Fiction Studies. Learn more here.