Avatars and Sleeves: (Dis)Embodiment in Cyberpunk Literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15633/lie.3578Keywords:
cyberpunk, postmodernism, technology, body, cyberspaceAbstract
The article revolves around the question of the boundaries of corporeality in selected cyberpunk novels, with particular emphasis on the evolution of body representations in virtual spaces, which remains one of the main identification marks of the genre. Broadly speaking, the evolution in question proceeds from a peculiar negation of the body in early cyberpunk prose, to its aestheticization in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, to the question of mind-body relationship touched upon in Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon. In the novels under discussion, corporeality poses both a problem and an ontological challenge, as it is located in technologically-determined environments which force textual subjects, and hence the readers, to constantly revise the boundaries and the status of their own bodies in a world more and more often resembling cyberpunk settings.
References
Baudrillard J., Simulacra and Simulation, Ann Arbor 1994.
Bukatman S., Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction, Durham 1993.
Cavallaro D., Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the Work of William Gibson, London–New Brunswick 2000.
Descartes R., Medytacje o filozofii pierwszej, tłum. J. Hartman, Kraków 2002.
Gibson W., Burning Chrome, w: Burning Chrome and Other Stories, London 1995, s. 195–220.
Gibson W., Idoru, tłum. Z. A. Królicki, Katowice 2011.
Gibson W., Mona Lisa Overdrive, New York–Toronto 1989.
Gibson W., Neuromancer, tłum. P. W. Cholewa, Poznań 1999.
Jameson F., Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham 1991.
Kellner D., Mapping the present from the future. From Baudrillard to cyberpunk, w: D. Kellner, Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics Between the Modern and the Postmodern, London–New York 1995, s. 297–330.
Lacan J., Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English, trans. B. Fink, R. Grigg, H. Fink, New York–London 2006.
Mitchell W. J., City of Bits: Space, Place, and the Infobahn, Cambridge, MA 1996.
Morgan R. K., Modyfikowany węgiel, tłum. M. Pawelec, Warszawa 2017.
Myers R. E., The Intersection of Science Fiction and Philosophy: Critical Studies, Westport, CT 1983.
Schneider S., Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence, Chichester 2016.
Stephenson N., Zamieć, tłum. J. Polak, Warszawa 2009.
Sterling B., Preface, w: W. Gibson, Burning Chrome and Other Stories, London 1995, s. 9–13.
Suvin D., Estrangement and Cognition, w: D. Suvin, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre, New Haven–London 1979, s. 3–15.
Žižek S., Welcome to the Desert of the Real! Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates, London–New York 2002.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The following rules apply to copyright:
1. The author declares that he or she has full copyright to the work, and such copyright it is not limited to the extent applicable to this declaration, that the article is an original work and that it does not infringe any third-party rights.
2. The author agrees to a free-of-charge, non-exclusive and non-restricted use of the work by Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow i.e.:
- to record and duplicate: make copies of the work by means of printing, reprography, magnetic or digital storage;
- to circulate the original or the copies of the work (disseminate, lend or lease the original or copies thereof, publicly display, screen or make the work publicly available so that everyone is able to access it at the time and in place they wish to do so);
- to include the work in a compilation;
- the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow may grant sublicenses Creative Commons Acknowledgement of authorship-Non-commercial use-Without derivative work 3.0 Poland
- the author and the title of the work will be listed,
- the place of publication (name of the periodical and an Internet link to the originally published work),
- the work will be distributed in a non-commercial way,
- no derivative works will be created.
The UPJPII Press does not waive any of its copyrights to any target group.
If you want to publish the text in Logos and Ethos, you must sign the license. However, the signing takes place at a later stage of publishing. Check the license: [license_en.pdf]