What's an Androgin Like you Doing in a Planet Like this? Otherness, Science-fiction and Gender in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness Authors Pau Pitarch Fernández Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Abstract This paper discusses Le Guin's classic novel as an example of the creative use of the codes and motifs of popular fiction to deal with gender issues. The use of androginy in the text is read as a thematization of the bisexualist bias in dealing with gendered bodies in our culture. Through the experiences of the main character, the novel reworks the classic science-fiction motif of the "alien encounter" in order to tackle the importance of otherness in the cultural understanding of gender. Far from offering an escapist utopia of unified androginy, the text sets free the multiplicity of identity options that exist behind the naturalized bisexual model. Downloads PDF (Català) Published 2010-07-13 Issue No. 11 (2005): Género y cultura popular Section Dossier License The Author retains ownership of the copyright in this article, unless the opposite is expressed, and all rights not expressly granted in this agreement, including the nonexclusive right to reproduce, distribute, perform, and display the article in print or electronic form, and grants, Lectora: revista de dones i textualitat the exclusive rights to print publication of the Article for a period beginning when this Agreement is executed and ending twelve (12) months after the first publicaton of the work in this Journal. After this time, the work will be available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works license, by which the article must be credited to the Author and the Journal be credited as first place of publication. Beginning twelve (12) months after the article´s first publication, the Author is free to enter in seperate, additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the work as published in this journal. The Author is encouraged to post the work online (eg in institutional or subject repositories, or on their website) after the exclusivity period of twelve (12) months has expired, as it can lead to productive exchanges as well as a greater citation of the published work (see The Effect of Open Access).
