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
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights without restrictions, and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
