Thomas Disch wrote a good (nonfiction) book about this idea. It's called <em>The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of.</em> It's quite good.
I'll plug my own comment that may interest you. It's a short list of essential SF criticism.
I'd also toss in <em>The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World</em> and <em>On SF</em> by Thomas Disch, as well as the first part of <em>To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction</em> by Joanna Russ.