“I am humanity”: Posthumanism and Embodiment in Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave

As one looks around today, it almost feels like the impact of technology on our daily lives can scarcely be overstated. Innovations in the digital realm have revolutionized the way we move, work, interact, learn, etc. in short the way we are. It is important then for popular literature for young adult (YA) to consider these issues, especially as it addresses a readership that is often the most directly affected by these technological changes at a time of formative “physical, cognitive, social, and psychological development” (Latrobe and Drury 4).

Weiterlesen

Tagungsbericht: Worlding SF – Building, Inhabiting, and Understanding SF Universes, Graz, 6.–8. Dezember 2018

Es hat sich etwas getan in Sachen Internationalisierung in den Science Fiction Studies – wo noch bis in die 2000er-Jahre hinein der einzig mögliche Austausch in den USA (und teilweise in Großbritannien) stattfand, da ist in den letzten zehn Jahren deutlich Bewegung in Forschungsgemeinde gekommen.

Weiterlesen

Mark C. Glassy. Biology Run Amok! The Life Science Lessons of Science Fiction Cinema.

Jefferson: McFarland 2018, 247 S., ISBN 9781476664729, USD 39,95

Es gehört zu den eher irritierenden Eigenschaften der Wissenschaften, dass viele Beteiligte zugleich von ihrer eigenen Befähigung überzeugt sind, die Welt erklären zu können und doch meistens mit einem recht eingeschränkten Blick auf eben diese schauen. Der Science-Fiction (SF) Film etwa wird von den meisten Forschenden der Naturwissenschaften mit Vorliebe auf seinen wissenschaftlichen Gehalt in den Blick genommen, um diesen auf seine ,Richtigkeit‘ zu überprüfen. Andere, wie etwa der Autor des vorliegenden Buches, wünschen zumindest ein Wechselspiel aufzumachen zwischen fiktionalem Streben und wissenschaftlicher Realität: Seine Texte, so Mark C. Glassy, seien Beschreibungen „what it would really take to actually create some of the SF film monsters“ (S. 5).

Weiterlesen

Posthumanism in Deus Ex: Human Revolution

There is an argument to be made that one of science fiction’s key concerns is the question of what it is to be human, and that thus a form of (post)humanist thinking lies at the heart of the genre. After all, one school of sf scholarship holds Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) as the genre’s origin text, dealing prototypically with “the search for a definition of man and his status in the universe” (Aldiss 8; cf. Freedman).

Weiterlesen

Enemy Mine

Enemy Mine is based on Barry B. Longyear’s 1980 Hugo- and Nebula-award winning novella of the same name, originally published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and later  rewritten into a novel and even expanded into a trilogy. It is also Wolfgang Petersen’s US-debut film direction, after his international breakthrough with the German World War II movie Das Boot (1981), which received six Academy Award nominations, and the well-received fantasy film The NeverEnding Story(1984).

Weiterlesen

XCOM / X-COM

The origins of the X-COM game series lie with the 1994 game titled UFO: Enemy Unknown, whose success spawned a rebranding into X-COM: UFO Defense and the launch of five further game titles under the same brand until changes in the ownership of the franchise stopped its development in 2001. After a hiatus, the franchise was bought by 2K Games to be rebooted and reimagined in 2012 as XCOM: Enemy Unknown, so far spawning two more games and additional download contents. The main entries in the series are round-based strategy games, in which players move tactical units over conflict maps in order to fulfill strategic objectives. 

Weiterlesen

Cyberpunk’s Commodification of Bodies

The genre of science fiction is not the most reliable source for predicting the future. And yet, when one engages in prophecy, be it political, social, ecological, or economic, science fiction seems to be a staple for the visualization of one’s prognostication. In fact, culturally speaking science fiction seems to be our most reliable resource to drive home the point that purely statistical predictions are unable to transport to mainstream audiences.

Weiterlesen
Privacy Settings
We use cookies to enhance your experience while using our website. If you are using our Services via a browser you can restrict, block or remove cookies through your web browser settings. We also use content and scripts from third parties that may use tracking technologies. You can selectively provide your consent below to allow such third party embeds. For complete information about the cookies we use, data we collect and how we process them, please check our Privacy Policy
Youtube
Consent to display content from Youtube
Vimeo
Consent to display content from Vimeo
Google Maps
Consent to display content from Google
Save