Date of Award

Spring 2007

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Program/Concentration

English

Committee Director

Manuela Mourao

Committee Member

Edward Jacobs

Committee Member

Kevin DePew

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E64 D36 2007

Abstract

The examination of technological metaphors as pervasive descriptive structures sustained in the genre of science fiction is most apparent in an analysis of the dialogue between posthuman discourse and science fiction. The literary posthuman, jointly derived from a rich history of socio-cultural anxieties of embodiment and identity dating back to Victorian Gothic literatures, is most recently manifest within the sphere of cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk fiction of the late 20th century. A third wave feminist analysis of posthuman technological metaphors is valuable for its potential to apprehend essentialist ideological constructions of gendered identity within science fiction which N. Katherine Hayles and Thomas Foster identify as a cultural deterrent in the adoption of a posthumanist philosophy. This thesis enacts a "positional" strategy of analysis to examine specific instances of rupture within narrative representations of hybrid subjectivity and gendered identity in cyberpunk fiction and posthuman text. By situating cyborg identities within specifically defined cultural contexts, it is possible to conduct a more accurate reading of the process of characterization within science fiction of the posthuman. The cyborgs of William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy (1984-1988) demonstrate the potential for a reading of female cyborg subjectivity cognizant of both technological context and the hierarchical linguistic structures which define their existence as the differential between liberal humanist and posthuman philosophies. In its posthuman exploration of existential tension and gendered identity, Masamune Shirow's cinematic Ghost in the Shell (1995) questions the authenticity and potential for cyborg transcendence while deconstructing traditionally western notions of the oriental Other and feminine identity. M.T. Anderson's Feed (2004), in a critique of pervasive western consumerism, provides a useful critical perspective on the status of the posthuman within capitalist superstructures. Through an exploration of technological anxieties, I interpret the fate of the posthuman within contexts of globalization and cultural information saturation. By demonstrating the pervasion of technological metaphors used to define and express hybrid existence, gendered identity, and scientific possibility, it is possible to discover the value of adopting a posthuman perspective in feminist research on the global south. Thus, posthuman science fiction is offers a critical perspective useful for further discursive research.

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DOI

10.25777/q30x-4m84

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