Vegetarianism and Science Fiction

This thesis examines the extent to which vegetarianism has been a marker of utopianism throughout science fiction’s literary history, how the vegetarian theme has been altered to reflect changes in ethical and environmental thought and the extent to which the vegetarian ideals promoted within science fiction and utopian literature have had a real-world impact on the spread of vegetarianism and animal advocacy. It does so by examining the representation of vegetarianism in the works of the major science fiction authors Mary Shelley, H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Kim Stanley Robinson and Margaret Atwood within their evolving social contexts, tracing the development of vegetarianism’s social and literary trends from the Romantic period of the early nineteenth century to the first decades of the twenty-first century.