Science-Fiction Srudies
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INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been repmôuced from the micrdilm master. UMI films the text difecüy from the original or copy submitted. mus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewnter face, while ofhen may be from any type of cornputer printer. The quality of this repfoâuction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistind print, cdored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedttrrough, substandard margins, and imwr alignment can adversely aff&zt reprodudion. In the unlikely event tnat the author did not send UMI a cornplete manuscript and there are missing pages, these wïll be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e-g., maps, drawings, charb) are reproduced by sectiming the original, beginning at the upper bft-hand corner and cantinuing from left to right in eqwl seaiocis with small overlaps. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduoed xerographicaliy in mis copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" bbck and mite photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI direcüy to order. Be11 8 Howell Information and Leaming 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 481064346 USA 800-521-0800 NOTE TO USERS The original manuscript received by UMI contains pages with indistinct andlor slanted print. Pages were microfilmed as received. # This reproduction is the best copy available The Cyborg. Cyberspace. and Nonh herican Science Fiction Salvatore Proietti Department of English iht~GiI1University. Monneal July 1998 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Q Salvatore Proietti, 1998 National Library Bibliothèque nationale 1*1 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wdlingtori Ottawa ON K 1 A ON4 OnawaON K1AW Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive Licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sel1 reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in rnicroform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or othenvise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT This thesis argues that the interfaa between human and machine has been an important systern of metaphors since the beginning of the twentieth century in North knerican science fiction (Sband nonfictional writings. In examining these texts. this study intends to discuss positions and responses regarding technological developments and the social and political experiences underlying it. In my parallel analyses of fictional (SF) and nonfictional (philosophical, scientifi- theoreticaI) texts. 1 wish to signal similarities and differences among the two fields. In different ways. the treatfments of cyborgs and cyberspace in both nonfiction and SF have addressed, through these metaphors, notions of mas culture, dernocracy. as well as individual and collective agenq and subjectivity. 1 al- argue that these critical strategies are best understood as the srrategies of nwo social groups-one of them in a dominant position (that of a professional, rnainly technocraüc class) and one in an ambivalently marginal position (that of the readers of a mass genre such as SF). In nonfictional writings, the strategy is as a rule one of either unaitical embrace of the present state of affairs, or a specular one of utter rejection, with the only exceptions emerging from contemporâry feminism. in SF, attitudes of both consensus and problematization emerge. Thus. my study aiso calis for a quaiification of daims about "postmodemity" as the privileged penod in which technology acquires center stage. My first nwo chapters foreground some theoretical concepts and issues related to both the study of inass culture and of the SF genre. The next three chapters focus on specific texts about the instrumental body and of the virtual frontier, and on the critical responses @y wornen, and by dissenting male figures) to them. The conclusion stresses the notions of democracy allegorically presented in these texts. RÉSUMÉ Cette thèse soutiens que dès le dCbut du vingtième siècle l'integration entre l'être humain et la machine a constituC un important systhc de metaphores à I 'intérieur de Ia production nord-américaine de science fiction (sf) et du discours doxoiogique. En examinarit ces textes, mon étude discute les points de vue et les réponses concernant les développements de la technologie et les expériences sociales et politiques qui en sont à la base. Dans mon analyse parallèle de textes de sf et dqessais philosophiques. scientifiques et theot@iques, je'entendes souligner les + analogies et les différences entre les deux domaines. De manières différentes. Ies approches aux cyborgs et à l'espace virtuel. soit dans la sf que dans les essais. ont été rapporté à des notions de culture de masse, de démocratie, de subjectivité ainsi que d'action' individuelle et collective. Je soutiens aussi que ces stratégies critiques peuvent mieux se comprendre en tant que stratkgies de deux groupes a lointerieurde la société-l'un ayant une position dominante et l'autre ayant une positim marginale ambigue. Dans les essais, cette stratégie est, généralement, une acceptation passive de l'actuel état des choses, ou bien un refus total, avec la seule exception des positions du feminisme contemporain. Dans la sf on remarque soit des attitudes de consentement, soit de problérnatisation. Mes deux premiers chapitres introduisent des concepts fondamentaux relatifs à l'étude de la culture de masse et de la sf. Le trois chapitres suivants analysent des textes spécifiques sur le corps instnimentale et la frontiere vinurlle ainsi que les utilisations critiques des themes du cyborg et de l'espace virtuel dans la sf (en particulier celle écrite par les femmes ou par les hommes en dehors de la vision hégémonique). La conclusion met l'accent sur les notions de démccratie qui sont allégotiquement présentees dans ces textes. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1 would like to thank rny thesis adviser, Darko Suvin, for his patience in this cross-continental endeavor. 1 aiso wish to thank the many people, among the cornrnunity of SF readers and critics, who have--pften inadvertentiy-contributed, in countless conversations, to the shaping of this work; let the names of Sandro Portelli (aIso for a friendship and a mentorship which go far beyond SF) and David Ketterer srand for this collecîive subjea. Mirella Martino and Richard Ambrosini read various versions of the manuscript: hopefully, they wil recognize some of their suggestions. Some of this work has been discussed in panels and serninars in various occasions; let the record show the name of the organizers: Agostino Lombardo. Giorgio Mariani, John Moore, Alessandro PorteIli, Umbeno Rossi. and Karen Sayer. An early version of some of the discussions of nonfiction has been published in Italian. See "Intomo ai cyberpunk,"Àcoma 12 (1998): 63-76. This work is dedicated to rny parents (working-class readers and book-Iovers, who never doubted that Gramsci and SF could belong on the same shelf); to everyone at the Centro Sociale Brancaleone coilective in Rome (who even let me practice some politics), and to Mirella of course. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction . Chapter 1 Critical Presuppositions. 1: On Mas Culture 1. Science Fiction in the Mass Market 2. Between Apocalypse and Dialogue 3- Science Fiction and the "Cultural Capitalwof Pufp America Chapter 2 Criticai Presuppositions. 2: On Science Fiction 1. A Premise 2. Outside 2.1. Definition 2.2. "Science" 2.3. Estrangement 2.4. Novum: The SF World and Its Boundaries 3. Inside 3.1. Self-Image: The SF Writer as Superman 3.2. SF Histories: Telos, Technology, and Canon 3.3. Limits of the Field 3.4. Samuel Delany: nieorizing Otherness Chapter 3 North American Cyborgs and the Body Instrumental 1. A Methodologico-Ideological Premise 65 2. Binh of the Cyborg 68 3. On Technocratic Danvinism: A Lineage 71 4. Technological Transparency and Its Discontents 76 S. Cyborgizing the Classics: Bester and Heinlein 82 6. The Mass Cyborg 93 6.1. Nonfiaion 93 6.2- Supermen IO2 6.3. Dystopias 104 7. Magnalia Americanomm Galadca: Military SF and the Armored Body 116 8. Hardwired Cowboys: The Walled Body of Cyberpunk 127 Chapter 4 Lighting Out for the Virtual Frontier 1. Vinual Frontiers and Informatic Jeremiads 2. US Identity in the Age of Cybernetic Simulation 3. Enclosures 4. The Re-opened Frontier of Cyberpunk Chapter 5 Cyborgs, Virtual Space. and North American Science Fiction 1. Rewriting the Master Stop 207 2. Sentimental Cyborgs in Women's SF 208 3. Philip Dick's Polyphonic Interfaces 220 4. On Gender, Alienation, and Utopia: Between the Sixties and Cyberpunk 237 5. nie Electronic Resistanct of Haraway's Feminism - 250 6. Cyberpunk and Literary Criticism 7. WiIliam Gibson: Situating Self and Space in Cyberpunk 8. On Cadigan and Women's Cyberpunk A Provisional Conclusion Worirs Cited 1. Primary Bibliography 2. Secondary Bibliography vii INTRODUCTION Let us commence with a passage from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrarlz (1939): "The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man: gloved. goggled. nibber dust mask over nose and mouth. he was pan of the monster, a robot in the seat" (37).