Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays

Almost all students have seen 2001, but virtually none understand its inheritance, its complexities, and certainly not its ironies. The essays in this collection, commissioned from a wide variety of scholars, examine in detail various possible readings of the film and its historical context. They also examine the film as a genre piece—as the summa of science fiction that simultaneously looks back on the science fiction conventions of the past (Kubrick began thinking of making a science…