The imperfections of a future past: Trauma, posthumanity, and Sci-Fi in William Gibson’s ‘The Gernsback Continuum’

Collado Rodríguez, Francisco (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Resumen: This paper centers its analysis on the first story ever published by William Gibson, the well-known guru of cyberpunk, and on his presentation there of the first posthuman character in his fiction. This early cyberpunk story, called “The Gernsback Continuum,” unfolds as a temporal recollection of an imperfect future past, an issue that offers the author the opportunity to play with our so far fruitless attempts to ever understand the category of time and thus our own place in the
universe. In addition, by looking back and commenting on modernist notions referred to time and memory, “The Gernsback Continuum” takes readers into a political valuation of the present social effects that the combination of traumaand posthumanity have brought forth in present life.

Idioma: Inglés

Año: 2017

Publicado en: Letterature d’America 37, 166-167 (2017), 177-194
ISSN: 2037-6952

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO/FFI2015-63506-P

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Filología Inglesa (Departamento de Filología Inglesa y Alemana)