Space Oceans

Abstract This article looks at how contemporary Chinese writers tackle established space and sea adventure themes, such as the imperialist connotations of the Pacific in postwar Japanese science fiction, the idea of the ocean as a resource-rich frontier for humanity in Arthur C. Clarke's works, or the ocean as a space of encounter with the dangerously alien in the work of Zheng Wenguang 鄭文光, and revisits them from a posthuman feminist perspective as they explore the oceans of outer space. The article first visits the alien seascapes of Titan in Chi Hui's 迟卉 “Deep Sea Fish” (Shenhai yu 深海鱼), with its oceans composed not of water but of liquid methane, analyzing the colonialist logic behind terrascaping and examining how the environment shapes the minds of the human residents even as they try to shape their environment. Second, Regina Kanyu Wang's 王侃瑜 “Return to Mi'an” (Chongfan mi'an 重返弥安) is read as a text that highlights the duality of space and ocean as realms for both frontline exploration and ultimate homecoming, while problematizing the very notion of the frontier itself, relying as it does on violent ignorance and erasure of earlier inhabitants. The article ends with a look at how Hu Shaoyan 胡绍晏 imagines the universe itself as an intergalactic ocean characterized by what Astrida Neimanis's has called “the hydrocommons of wet relations.”