Scott Bukatman's Terminal Identity—referring to both the site of the termination of the conventional "subject" and the birth of a new subjectivity constructed at the computer terminal or television screen--puts to rest any lingering doubts of the significance of science fiction in contemporary cultural studies. Demonstrating a comprehensive knowledge, both of the history of science fiction narrative from its earliest origins, and of cultural theory and philosophy, Bukatman redefines the nature of human identity in the Information Age.
Drawing on a wide range of contemporary theories of the postmodern—including Fredric Jameson, Donna Haraway, and Jean Baudrillard—Bukatman begins with the proposition that Western culture is suffering a crisis brought on by advanced electronic technologies. Then in a series of chapters richly supported by analyses of literary texts, visual arts, film, video, television, comics, computer games, and graphics, Bukatman takes the reader on an odyssey that traces the postmodern subject from its current crisis, through its close encounters with technology, and finally to new self-recognition. This new "virtual subject," as Bukatman defines it, situates the human and the technological as coexistent, codependent, and mutally defining.
Synthesizing the most provocative theories of postmodern culture with a truly encyclopedic treatment of the relevant media, this volume sets a new standard in the study of science fiction—a category that itself may be redefined in light of this work. Bukatman not only offers the most detailed map to date of the intellectual terrain of postmodern technology studies—he arrives at new frontiers, providing a propitious launching point for further inquiries into the relationship of electronic technology and culture.
| Acknowledgments | ||
| Introduction | 1 | |
| 1 | Terminal Image | 23 |
| Introduction | 25 | |
| The Image Addict | 32 | |
| The Society of the Spectacle | 35 | |
| Cut-ups and White Noise | 38 | |
| J. G. Ballard and the Mediascape | 41 | |
| The Man Who Fell to Earth - Loving the Alien | 46 | |
| The Schizoculture of Philip K. Dick | 48 | |
| Superheroes for a New Era | 55 | |
| 1 | American Flagg! and Nam June Paik | 55 |
| 2 | Max Headroom - 20 Minutes into the Future | 63 |
| The Image Virus | 69 | |
| The Electronic Nervous System | 70 | |
| The Electronic Virus | 72 | |
| William Burroughs, the Nova Mob, and the Silence Virus | 74 | |
| Burroughs and Cronenberg - Word and Body | 78 | |
| Videodrome | 85 | |
| Ubik and the Reality Fix | 93 | |
| Videodrome - The Death of Representation | 97 | |
| 2 | Terminal Space | 101 |
| Introduction - Electronic Space | 103 | |
| Cyberspace | 119 | |
| The Cybernetic (City) State | 121 | |
| Blade Runner and Fractal Geography | 130 | |
| Cyberpunk | 137 | |
| Neuromancer | 146 | |
| The Production of Cyberspace | 154 | |
| Paraspace | 157 | |
| The Paraspaces of Science Fiction | 157 | |
| Worlds in Collision | 161 | |
| Urban Zones and Cyber Zones | 165 | |
| Return to Paraspace (Into the Quanta) | 172 | |
| The SF Text as Paraspace | 174 | |
| Coda - Baudrillard in the Zone | 180 | |
| 3 | Terminal Penetration | 183 |
| Narrative and Virtual Realities | 185 | |
| Fun in Cyberspace | 196 | |
| Jacking in | 201 | |
| "True Names" | 201 | |
| Cyberspace Cowboys - Kinetic Urban Subjects | 204 | |
| 1 | Cyberspace and the Omnipotence of Thoughts | 208 |
| 2 | A Tactics of Kinesis | 210 |
| TRON - Cinema in Cyberspace | 215 | |
| There's Always . . . Tomorrowland | 227 | |
| 4 | Terminal Flesh | 241 |
| Introduction | 243 | |
| Lifestyles of the Electronically Enhanced | 247 | |
| The Persistence of Memory | 248 | |
| Cyberpunks with a Plan | 250 | |
| Terminal Cyborgs | 251 | |
| Into the Plasma Pool | 259 | |
| The Extrusion of the Flesh | 259 | |
| Alien | 262 | |
| The Fly | 267 | |
| Blood Music | 268 | |
| Schismatrix - Living in the Posthuman Solar System | 272 | |
| Bataille and the New Flesh | 278 | |
| Cosmic Continuity | 279 | |
| Panic Subjects in the Machine Civilization | 284 | |
| 1 | Buttonheads, Wireheads, and Charge Addicts | 284 |
| 2 | Antibodies | 286 |
| Boys' Toys from Hell | 288 | |
| Crash | 291 | |
| Limbo | 293 | |
| Techno-Surrealism | 295 | |
| 5 | Terminal Resistance/Cyborg Acceptance | 299 |
| Terminal Resistance | 301 | |
| The Armored Body (and the Armored Arnold) | 301 | |
| Feminist Resistance and a Romance Novel for Cyborgs | 311 | |
| Cyborg Acceptance | 321 | |
| The End of Eden | 321 | |
| The Body without Organs | 325 | |
| Conclusion | 328 | |
| Notes | 331 | |
| Filmography | 373 | |
| Bibliography | 375 | |
| Index | 397 |
Overview
Scott Bukatman's Terminal Identity—referring to both the site of the termination of the conventional "subject" and the birth of a new subjectivity constructed at the computer terminal or television screen--puts to rest any lingering doubts of the significance of science fiction in contemporary cultural studies. Demonstrating a comprehensive knowledge, both of the history of science fiction narrative from its earliest origins, and of cultural theory and philosophy, Bukatman ...