The handmaids tale

Many readers are surprised to hear Atwood's novel labeled science fiction, but it belongs squarely in the long tradition of near-future dystopias which has made up a large part of SF since the early50s. SF need not involve technological innovation: it has been a long-standing principle that social change can provide the basis for SF just as well as technical change. The Handmaid's Tale is partly an extrapolation of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, attempting …

…cus 16:10.Prof. Pieixoto's talk is of a type familiar to literary historians: the attemptto connect a the author of a text with some historical person known from otherrecords, particularly in Medieval studies. But for us, the identification isirrelevant, it is the knowledge that Offred survived and the rebellionoriginally triumphed that matters. The final call for questions is traditional,of course, but also serves here as an invitation to further discussion of theissues Atwood has raised.