Related Papers
Our Posthuman Past: Subjectivity, History and Utopia in late-Soviet Science Fiction
Elana Gomel
This essay argues that Soviet culture had its own version of posthumanism, very different from its Western incarnation, and that it was reflected in Soviet SF, especially that of the Strugatsky brothers.
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks
Science Fiction, Alien Encounters, and the Ethics of Posthumanism
2014 •
Elana Gomel
Globalization, Utopia, and Postcolonial Science Fiction
Globalization, Utopia, and Postcolonial Science Fiction
2012 •
Eric Smith
Söylem Filoloji Dergisi
Sexing the Alien: A Posthuman Hermeneutics of the Embodied Self in Lisa Tuttle’s “Wives
Rıza Çimen
Dominant discourses seek to take hold of every epistemic stratum through ubiquitous attempts to regulate quotidian experiences and routines. Ranging from language to culture, from gender to political organizations, disciplinary practices constitute a complex web of relations in hierarchical structures and produce specific identities and situations for subjects to inhabit. As critical scholarship in body studies has shown, body is among the central focuses of dominant discourses in that a regulated experience of corporeality secures, as a site of ideological inscription, the continuity of governing paradigms. Lisa Tuttle’s “Wives” calls for a reformulation of the ethics of embodiment and explores how anthropomorphic demarcations are imprinted upon the genderless bodies of extra-terrestrial beings. In this feminist narrative featuring the generic qualities of science fiction, the heteronormative register of the anthropocentric thought finds a new space (a different planet) to actualiz...
Captured: The Animal Within Culture
2014 •
Melissa Boyde
The Zombie in the Mirror: Postmodernism and Subjectivity in Science Fiction
Elana Gomel
One of the central features of postmodernism is its embrace of popular culture. The “vernacular” architecture of Roberto Venturi (Learning from Las Vegas; 1977), the gory sensationalism of Pulp Fiction (1994), the convoluted mystery of Lost (2004-2010) and Twin Peaks (1991), are all examples of the blurring of the boundary between “high” and “low” art forms. But the most obvious example of this blurring is the close connection between postmodernism and science fiction (SF). Previously relegated to the ghetto of pulp magazines, derided as the fodder for socially-challenged nerds, SF suddenly became artistically and academically respectable in the 1990s. Brian McHale in Constructing Postmodernism singled our SF as perhaps the representative postmodern genre, pointing out that even the “mainstream” postmodern literature had been “’science-fictionized’ to some greater or lesser degree” (1992; 229; emphasis in the original). Many other critics have also argued that there exists a “continuity…between the registers of the postmodern and the science-fictional” (Broderick 111). But how are we to understand this continuity? Is it merely a matter of postmodernism’s fascination with fantasy worlds, impossible events, and mysterious coincidences? Or is there a deeper connection, related to the way postmodernism challenges the very definition of what it means to be human?
Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research
The emerging political economy of Humanity 2.0
2012 •
Steve Fuller
“Humanity 2.0” refers to the title of my recent book (Humanity 2.0: What It Means to Be Human Past, Present and Future, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), in which I present humanity as historically poised to re-negotiate its sense of collective identity. There are at least five reasons for this, which are addressed in this paper: (a) the prominence of digital technology
European Legacy-toward New Paradigms
Science (Fiction) and Posthuman Ethics: Redefining the Human
2011 •
Elana Gomel
The boundaries of the ethical have traditionally coincided with the boundaries of humanity. This, however, is no longer the case. Scientific developments, such as genetic engineering, stem-cell research, cloning, the Human Genome Project, new paleontological evidence, and the rise of neuropsychology call into question the very notion of human being and thus require a new conceptual map for ethical judgment. The contours of this map may be seen to emerge in works of science fiction (SF), which not only vividly dramatize the implications and consequences of new technologies and discoveries, but also exert a powerful influence on culture, creating a feedback loop of images and ideas. This essay focuses on three SF topoi: the human/animal evolutionary boundary; non-biological subjectivity (AI); and the human/alien interaction. It explores each of these topoi in a selection of SF texts, including novels by H. G. Wells, Olaf Stapledon, Stephen Baxter, William Gibson, Stanislaw Lem and others, showing how the boundaries of humanity are expanded and then exploded through the radical subversion of the tenets of liberal humanism.
Trabalhos em Linguística Aplicada
(Dis)Abling Body and Consciousness: Technological Afterness and After-Humans in Realive and Upgrade
Asijit Datta
My paper talks about post-human spaces and technological afterness associated with the physiognomy of humans. Mechanical alteration in biological mechanisms is directly experienced in seizing of organic consciousness. The rupture in consciousness splits it into two distinct parts-one belonging to the disappearing human, the other to the emerging cybernetic. The new being is not another human, but (an)other human, an evolved different sameness. In the film Realive (2016) we encounter an extension of the self beyond death by re-placing it into another body. However, this enhancement diffuses all ‘natural’ responses and meaning-making vehicles, primarily the cognizance of death and mortality. In a classic Frankensteinian restoration, Marc is reanimated in 2084 through extensive methods of cryonization under the banner ‘Lazarus project’. The post-human ‘humachines’ dissolve the position of the teleological man and stretch DNA to digitality. Upgrade (2018) shows us the metamorphosis of G...
Dossiê ( DIS ) ABLING BODY AND CONSCIOUSNESS : TECHNOLOGICAL AFTERNESS AND AFTER-HUMANS IN REALIVE AND UPGRADE ( DES ) ABILITANDO CORPO
2019 •
asijit datta
My paper talks about post-human spaces and technological afterness associated with the physiognomy of humans. Mechanical alteration in biological mechanisms is directly experienced in seizing of organic consciousness. The rupture in consciousness splits it into two distinct parts—one belonging to the disappearing human, the other to the emerging cybernetic. The new being is not another human, but (an)other human, an evolved different sameness. In the film Realive (2016) we encounter an extension of the self beyond death by re-placing it into another body. However, this enhancement diffuses all ‘natural’ responses and meaning-making vehicles, primarily the cognizance of death and mortality. In a classic Frankensteinian restoration, Marc is reanimated in 2084 through extensive methods of cryonization under the banner ‘Lazarus project’. The post-human ‘humachines’ dissolve the position of the teleological man and stretch DNA to digitality. Upgrade (2018) shows us the metamorphosis of G...
