The Posthuman Future of Man
Anthropocentrism and the Other of Technology in Anglo-American Science Fiction
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6012215 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ralph Pordzik (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 142-161 |
| Publication date | 2012-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Utopian Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1045-991X • E-ISSN: 2154-9648 |
| Publisher | The Pennsylvania State University Press (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.5325/utopianstudies.23.1.0142 |
| OpenAlex | W2125475893 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 8 |
Novels and short stories written since the last decades of the nineteenth century and employing discourses of technology have contributed to shaping the idea of the “posthuman condition” in the West to such a degree that some critics already feel entitled to announce the Age of the Posthuman. This essay interrogates some of the embarrassingly quixotic proposals of posthumanism, taking H. G. Wells's Time Machine (1895), William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984), and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake (2004) as paradigmatic texts exploring patterns of mutation, virtuality, and bioengineering. In their concern for the apocalyptic and their sometime depiction of the glorious moment of Herculean victory over classical “human” man (or the “liberal subject”), these novels articulate the Western self's undaunted desire for the perfect Other, implying critical and even ironic gestures that question the propagation of a “new” human condition or the idea of absolute boundaries of the human
Aesthetics · Anthropocentrism · Art · Depiction · Dystopia · Environmental ethics · Literature · Posthuman · Posthumanism · Sociology · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Philosophy · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,44 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2025 (9) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |