Biopunk Dystopias Genetic Engineering, Society And Science Fiction (liverpool Science Fiction Texts And Studies)
by Lars Schmeink /
2017 / English / PDF
1.7 MB Download
Biopunk Dystopias' contends that we find ourselves at a historical
nexus, defined by the rise of biology as the driving force of
scientific progress, a strongly grown mainstream attention given to
genetic engineering in the wake of the Human Genome Project
(1990-2003), the changing sociological view of a liquid modern
society, and shifting discourses on the posthuman, including a
critical posthumanism that decenters the privileged subject of
humanism. The book argues that this historical nexus produces a
specific cultural formation in the form of "biopunk", a subgenre
evolved from the cyberpunk of the 1980s. The analysis deals with
dystopian science fiction artifacts of different media from the
year 2000 onwards that project a posthuman intervention into
contemporary socio-political discourse based in liquid modernity in
the cultural formation of biopunk. Biopunk makes use of current
posthumanist conceptions in order to criticize contemporary reality
as already dystopian, warning that a future will only get worse,
and that society needs to reverse its path, or else destroy all
life on this planet. As Rosi Braidotti argues, "there is a
posthuman agreement that contemporary science and biotechnologies
affect the very fibre and structure of the living and have altered
dramatically our understanding of what counts as the basic frame of
reference for the human today" (40). The proposed book analyzes
this alteration as directors, creators, authors, and artists from
the field of science fiction extrapolate it from current
trends.
Biopunk Dystopias' contends that we find ourselves at a historical
nexus, defined by the rise of biology as the driving force of
scientific progress, a strongly grown mainstream attention given to
genetic engineering in the wake of the Human Genome Project
(1990-2003), the changing sociological view of a liquid modern
society, and shifting discourses on the posthuman, including a
critical posthumanism that decenters the privileged subject of
humanism. The book argues that this historical nexus produces a
specific cultural formation in the form of "biopunk", a subgenre
evolved from the cyberpunk of the 1980s. The analysis deals with
dystopian science fiction artifacts of different media from the
year 2000 onwards that project a posthuman intervention into
contemporary socio-political discourse based in liquid modernity in
the cultural formation of biopunk. Biopunk makes use of current
posthumanist conceptions in order to criticize contemporary reality
as already dystopian, warning that a future will only get worse,
and that society needs to reverse its path, or else destroy all
life on this planet. As Rosi Braidotti argues, "there is a
posthuman agreement that contemporary science and biotechnologies
affect the very fibre and structure of the living and have altered
dramatically our understanding of what counts as the basic frame of
reference for the human today" (40). The proposed book analyzes
this alteration as directors, creators, authors, and artists from
the field of science fiction extrapolate it from current
trends.
