Cyberpunk
Preparing the Ground for Revolution or Keeping the Boys Satisfied
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11059226 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicola Nixon (0000-0001-6245-3513, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | Part 2 |
| Pages | 219-235 |
| Publication date | 1992-07-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Science Fiction Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0091-7729 • E-ISSN: 2327-6207 |
| Publisher | University of California Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1525/sfs.19.2.0219 |
| OpenAlex | W4410185674 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Hailed by its authors, many of its critics, and its promoters within the SF publishing industry as “preparing the ground for a revolution, ” the cyberpunk. SF of the 1980s has made large political claims for itself. Some of those claims are implicit in the determination of cyberpunk’s authors to legitimize their revolutionary status through establishing a filial link with the SF fathers of the 1960s. But in making such connections, writers like Bruce Sterling have avoided (inadvertently?) all references to the political SF of the 70s, realized in the writings of feminists like Joanna Russ, Ursula Le Guin, Suzy McKee Chamas, and others. Sterling for example, maintains that SF was in “hibernation” in the 1970s. Such a pronounced lacuna is provocative, not only for what it reveals about the political space cyberpunk sees itself as occupying but alsofor what it suggests with regard to its gender politics. This paper examines the nature of that supposedly revolutionary agenda in cyber-punk, first placing it within the context of its immediate feminist antecedents, then raising a number of questions as to its peculiar reliance on specific cultural icons popular in the Reaganite America of the 1980s. (NN)
| Citations per year | 0.27 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2015 - 2024 (10) |
| Highly cited | No |