Del 69 - Liverpool Science Fiction Texts & Studies

After Human

A Critical History of the Human in Science Fiction from Shelley to Le Guin

Inbunden, Engelska, 2021

AvThomas Connolly

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Shortlisted for the British Fantasy Awards (Non-Fiction) 2022Shortlisted for the Locus Science Fiction Foundation Non-Fiction Award 2022SF haslong been understood as a literature of radical potential, capable of imaginingentirely new worlds and ways of being. Yet SF has been slow to embraceposthumanist ideas about the human subject. The human of the SF tradition isinstead a liminal being, caught somewhere between the transcendent ‘Man’ ofclassical humanism and the subversive ‘cyborg’ of posthumanist thought.Thisstudy offers a critical history of the 'human' in SF. By examining a rangeof SF works from 1818 to the 1970s, it seeks to answer some key questions: Whatrole does technology play in defining what it means to be—or not to be—human?How do these writers understand the relationship between humanity and the restof nature? And how can we use SF to re-examine our ethical position towards thenon-human world and move to more egalitarian understandings of the humansubject?

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2021-04-01
Mått163 x 239 x undefined mm
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieLiverpool Science Fiction Texts & Studies
Antal sidor240
FörlagLiverpool University Press
ISBN9781800348165

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Introduction: 'Beyond the common range of men': H.G. Wells, the OncoMouse, and the Human in Anglo-American SF1. Worlds Lost and Gained: Evolution, Primitivism, and the Pre-Human in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World and Jack London's The Iron Heel2. Soma and Skylarks: Technocracy, Agency and the Trans-Human in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and E.E. 'Doc' Smith's Skylark Series3. Homo Gestalt: Atomics, Empire, and the Supra-Human in Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars4. Disaster and Redemption: Utopia, Nature, and the Post-Human in J.G. Ballard's The Crystal World and Ursula K. Le Guin's The DispossessedConclusion: Bio/Techno/Homo: The Future of the Human in SF

'This wide-ranging and original study convincingly shows how science fiction has (almost) always been posthuman. Thomas Connolly’s critical and cultural history of “the human” in Anglo-American sf ranges from the nineteenth century through the 1970s, constructing an expansive pre-history of the posthuman before the cyberpunk explosion of the 1980s. This is an exciting new story about the history of science fiction.'Veronica Hollinger, co-editor of Science Fiction Studies