Frank Herbert’s ”Dune” and the Emergence of Fascism in Science Fiction Fandoms

Jordan Carroll joins me on the podcast today to discuss the emergence of fascism in science fiction fandoms and specifically how Frank Herbert's 1965 novel "Dune" has been co-opted and used for white supremacist propaganda and recruitment. We talk about the alt-right's obsession with transhumanism and genetic engineering, why they advocate for space exploration, and why they hate Star Trek. Jordan explains to me how reactionary extremists like Richard Spencer repurpose the the texts of popular science fiction to create alt-right narratives for his followers as well as the dismal white supremacist fantasy lore surrounding Warhammer.

Jordan S. Carroll is a writer and educator who received his PhD in English from the University of California, Davis. His first book, Reading the Obscene: Transgressive Editors and the Class Politics of US Literature (Stanford 2021), won the Modern Language Association's Prize for Independent Scholars. He is currently working on another book titled Speculative Whiteness: Race, Science Fiction, and the Alt-Right, which is forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press Forerunners series. Speculative Whiteness examines the long history of connections between science fiction and white nationalism to show that fascists have often interpreted speculative narratives to argue that only white men have the capacity to imagine the future. His other work has appeared in venues including American Literature, Post*45, The Nation, Polygon, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

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