Science Fiction, Alien Encounters, and the Ethics of Posthumanism Beyond the Golden Rule

by Gomel, Elana

• ISBN13: 9781137367624
• ISBN10: 1137367628
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781137367631
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-06-24
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
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Summary

This book brings together two important cultural trends: alien encounters and posthumanism. By considering scenarios of encounters with intelligent aliens in literary science fiction, Science Fiction, Alien Encounters, and the Ethics of Posthumanism argues that the ethics of empathy and politics of human rights are insufficient to meet the challenges of our posthuman age. Rather, posthumanism requires an ethics of transformation, in which the encounter with the Other remakes the human subject. The book offers a typology of alien encounters and addresses a wide range of texts. Its scope includes, but is not limited to, classic novels of alien encounter by H.G. Wells and Robert Heinlein; recent blockbusters by Greg Bear, Octavia Butler and Sheri Tepper; and experimental science fiction by Peter Watts and Housuke Nojiri. It also contains an extensive discussion of Soviet science fiction and of the novels of Stanislaw Lem, bringing important aspects of global posthumanist culture to the attention of the Anglo-American reader.

Author Biography

Elana Gomel is an Associate Professor at the Department of English and American Studies at Tel-Aviv University, Israel. She is the author of four books and numerous articles on subjects ranging from postmodernism, narrative theory, and science fiction to Dickens and Victorian culture.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction: Why Do We Need Aliens?
PART I: CONFRONTATION
1.'The Force That Gives Us Meaning': Alien Invasion and Search for Redemption
2.Idylls of the Same: Soviet SF, Cosmic Humanism, and Escape from History
PART II: ASSIMILATION
3.The Contagion of Posthumanity: Alien Infestation and the Paradox of Subjectivity
4.Human Skins, Alien Masks: Allegories of Postcolonial Guilt
PART III: TRANSFORMATION
5.The Human Trinity: What Makes Us Other?
6.Stanislaw Lem and the Holocaust of Humanism
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index