Naslov
Transhumanism and counter- cultural conceptions of identity in works of Harlan Ellison and Phillip K. Dick

Autori
Drača, Vinko

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u zbornicima skupova, cjeloviti rad (in extenso), znanstveni

Izvornik
Zbornik 9. kulturološkega simpozija: Self-ologija / Arko, Maša Pepelnak, Sebastian - Ljubljana : Kult.com, 2016

Skup
Self-ology

Mjesto i datum
Ljubljana, Slovenija, 12.04.2016. - 14.04.2016

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
transhumanism; counter-culture; Ellison; Harlan; Dick; Phillip; androids; self

Sažetak
Transhumanism and counter- cultural conceptions of identity in works of Harlan Ellison and Phillip K. Dick In my lecture I’m going to look upon the conceptions of technological Self that became prevalent in the Science Fiction literature of the late 1960’s with particular focus on the works of Harlan Ellison (I Have No Mouth and Yet I Must Scream, A Boy and His Dog) and Phillip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep). Both authors have written extensively on the subject of technology and the various ways upon which technology changes and challenges prevalent conceptions of self. When I say “prevalent conceptions of self” I am referring upon rational, Carthesian concept of human identity that was mostly conceptualized in the early Modern period of European civilization and that became basis of the Enlightenment philosophy and of scientific empiricism and rationalism that had stemmed out of the said philosophical school. Those works belong to the rich opus of counter-cultural science-fiction literature and in the times of their publishing were considered underground works. With the flowering of 1960’s countercultural movement the interest for new paradigms of humanism was on the rise. The outlook on technological developments of the era within counter-cultural movement was ambivalent. On one end of the spectrum there were praises to the new technological man visionaries like counter-cultural guru Marshall McLuhan have praised the effects of new media technologies on the human mind, and the movement of Technogaianism had laid foundations for the renewable energy sources technology. On the other, darker end, there were many authors like Kesey and Huxley who have predicted technological alienation of Man. Kesey spoke of society as of “the Combine” de-humanized machine that was specifically built for oppression while Huxley’s narrative of “Brave New World” give us dark future of alienated humankind. Somewhere in the middle of those two conflicting schools philosophical transhumanism flourished, mostly distributed through works of science fiction. The reason why I am focusing on Ellison and Dick is their tendency to move beyond mere technophilia or technophobia and explore all the ways we can use technology as a narrative and epistemological device through which we can observe and challenge modern conceptions of human nature and reason. Works of those authors paint a post-apocalyptic world in which modern institutions of liberal society are absent (often they were destroyed by wars or man-made disasters) and the new Self is re-actualized as a field in which human and transhuman conflict with each other. Transhuman Other is presented in the image of androids (in the case of “replicants” of Phillip K. Dick) or as supercomputers or genetically altered humans (in the case of Elisson). The narrative function of Other goes beyond symbolizing tangible anxieties about the future of humanity as is the case with some of the more popular presentations of literary transhumanism (Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and Huxley’s “Brave New World”) but to reveal the anxieties of human state that are rooted based in those philosophical and ideological conceptions of “human” that are exclusive, limited and in its very nature totalitarian. Tranhumanism in those works serves as a criticism of Western humanism in its restrictive structure.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filozofija, Povijest, Etnologija i antropologija

POVEZANOST RADA