This book undertakes the first large-scale analysis of women's agency in Frank Herbert's six-book science fiction Dune series. Kara Kennedy explores how female characters in the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood-from Jessica to Darwi Odrade-secure control and influence through five avenues of embodied agency: mind-body synergy, reproduction and motherhood, voices, education and memory, and sexuality. She also discusses constraints on their agency, tensions between individual and collective action, and comparisons with other characters including the Mentats, Bene Tleilaxu, and Honored Matres. The book engages with second-wave feminist theories and historical issues to highlight how the series anticipated and paralleled developments in the women's liberation movement. In this context, it addresses issues regarding sexual difference and solidarity, as well as women's demand to have control over their bodies. Kennedy concludes that the series should be acknowledged as a significant contribution to the genre as part of both New Wave and feminist science fiction.

Literary Onomastics surveys different methods of studying names in works of literature and offers representative works of literary onomastic analysis. Included in this volume are qualitative studies that examine select names as well as quantitative studies that examine entire systems of names. These studies of literary names straddle centuries, cross genres, and defy simple categorization. Leading and emerging scholars in this field provide insight into the namecraft of William Shakespeare, Philip Sidney, John Donne, Julia Alvarez, Ursula K. Le Guin, Zadie Smith, George R. R. Martin, and Britain's Rebel Writers. The theories and methods they employ are associated with cultural, linguistic, rhetorical, feminist, and ethnic studies. Collectively, these scholars demonstrate the many approaches available to the study of names and naming practices in literary works. Additionally, they consider how names function in a variety of genres and mediums, including poetry, novels, science fiction, and fantasy.

This book offers a critical study of Frank Herbert's Dune (1965), the world's bestselling science fiction novel. Kara Kennedy discusses the novel's exploration of politics and religion, its influential ecological messages, the focus on the human mind and consciousness, the complex nature of the archetypal hero, and the depiction of women's influence and control. In Dune, Herbert demonstrated that sophistication, complexity, and a multi-layered world with three-dimensional characters could sit comfortably within the science fiction genre. Underneath its deceptively simple storyline sits a wealth of historical and philosophical contexts and influences that make it a rich masterpiece open to multiple interpretations. Kennedy's study shows the continuing relevance of the novel in the 21st century due to its classic themes and its concerns about the future of humanity, as well as the ongoing nature of issues such as ecological disruption and conflicts over resources and religion.