“The Sobornost Station is large enough to have its own weather. The ghost-rain inside does not so much fall but shimmers in the air. It makes shapes and moves, and gives Tawaddud the constant feeling that something is lurking just at the edge of her vision. She looks up, and immediately regrets it. Through the […]
Tag: Science Fiction
Dark Lord Possibility Space
According to the Disconnection Thesis (Roden 2012; 2014: Chapter 5) a posthuman is an agent descended from some part of the human socio-technical system that has “gone feral”. In its ancestral form, it may have served human ends, or have been narrowly human itself, but (post-disconnection) has accrued values and roles elsewhere. To date there are no posthumans […]
The call of the weird
There’s an interesting essay about the allure of the weird and abominable in the fiction of Lovecraft by Ann M. Pillsworth here at the Tor website. Since my partner’s preparing a Greek squid and potato dish, I’m currently well in the grip of tenticular ravishment.
Anita Mason's Confusion of Genre
Anita Mason has a contribution to the long running genre debate here at the Guardian entitled “Genre fiction radiates from a literary centre”. I think her attempt to constitute this supposed center self-deconstructs spectacularly, but in a manner that is instructive and worth teasing apart. This metaphorical representation of the literary as the universal and […]
Accelerationism and Posthumanism II
Accelerationism combines a transhumanist techno-optimism with a Marxist analysis of the dynamic between the relations and forces of production. Its proponents argue that under capitalism, modern technology is constrained by myopic and socially destructive goals. They argue that rather than abandoning technological modernity for illusory homeostatic Eden we should exploit and ramp up its incendiary […]
Is an anti-mind possible? Critically discuss.
Excellent discussion of whether it takes a mind to detect a mind from Pete Mandik here.
Superheroes and Posthumans
There is a very interesting piece by Scott Jeffery on superhero bodies and the cultural history of post/trans-humanism here.
. . .like a black highway at night
Hadley Freeman has an engaging interview with Terminator and Avatar director James Cameron on the excellent Guardian web site. Cameron is underrated by people who think aesthetically realized movies must be all tight-lipped introspection or (worse) draw on prestigious literary sources. Terminator, T2 and Aliens, though, are the epitome of the smart techno-thriller. There’s a […]
Descartes as Deckard
This is part of an ongoing project whose modest goal is to nuance the understanding of humanism in posthumanist philosophy and criticism. Cartesian dualism is one of the main targets of these critiques, but differences between dualisms tend to become obscured in the rush to lay the liberal humanist subject. Here, I’m using Mike Wheeler’s […]
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