Announcements
- Friday, 3/13, Project Enough presents “Tales from Down There”
McKnight Auditorium (Cone Center)
7:00 pm-??? (usually it’s an hour and a half) - Wed. 3/25, Student-led summit on “Race, Gender, and Tech”
Featuring Dr. Ruha Benjamin
CHHS 159 (Please RSVP…but no link available)
9:00 am-10:30 am - Wed. 4/1, Feminisms Day
Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha
“Care Work and Generative Justice”
5:30 pm (full day schedule TBA) - Thurs. 4/16, 3:00 pm-4/17, 5:30 pm
Imagining Futures: Women and Girlhood Symposium
(co-coordinated with AFRS)
Plan for the Day
- Coronavirus Update and Plans
- Literature’s Importance to the Humanities
- William Gibson’s Neuromancer
- Upcoming Draft for the Social Construction of Technology Essay
Due Wednesday, 3/12 (5 pages)
Literature in a Technical Writing Class?
I know it’s bizarre, but I consider much science fiction to be related to technical communication. Additionally, since the rhetoric of technology deals with all discourse surrounding technology, science fiction is 100% germane to our discussions. Before we move on, let’s consider my case for using science fiction.
I want to explain a bias I have. Well, it’s not just my bias; it’s a contemporary English professor bias called the intentional fallacy. Basically, a text’s meaning does not come ONLY from the author’s (or director’s or creator’s) intended meaning. Therefore, the author is not the sole or final arbiter of what a text means. Even though I take a more cultural studies approach–texts are products of the culture from which they come–I don’t want to imply that an author’s intent is irrelevant to a text’s meaning. I just don’t want you to assume that it’s the last word or that no other interpretation is possible. Most (good) authors and artists will say in interviews that they hope their audience takes away from it their own interpretations.
Our cultural studies approach asks you to consider the metaphoric (sometimes even accidental prediction) use of technologies. Here are some big picture topics to consider for Neuromancer:
- Technology…communication technology
- Capitalism
- Overpopulation
- Religion
- Rastafarianism
- Religion of Technology–Is Wintermute really a false prophet?
- Alienation vs Individuality
William Gibson’s Background
The irony of having just discussed the intentional fallacy followed by Gibson’s background isn’t lost on me. That being said…William Gibson is from Conway, SC, but grew up in Norfolk, VA. It’s safe to say he might base the idea of the sprawl on the growth of Myrtle Beach and Virginia Beach. There’s a paper in that!
Bruce Sterling wrote the “Preface” to William Gibson’s collection of short stories titled Burning Chrome (the short story “Burning Chrome” [1982] introduced the word cyberspace). William Gibson’s “Introduction” to that collection–just remember that it’s not the final word–might help guide you on interpretations. One interesting point to ponder might be why Gibson claims he didn’t feel science fiction from Asimov and Heinlein “did it” for him; they weren’t loose enough with their take on the historical moment (p xvi). I certainly have critiques of Asimov, and I think Gibson should be credited for taking science fiction into an more mature place, but even Gibson isn’t without critique…more on that later. I would argue that Asimov was questioning our assumptions of history, and he wasn’t writing from “fixed assumptions of history” (p. xvi). Gibson was just further into postmodernity–which questions all grand narratives–so he himself had a different reference point. Not better but different in context.
Below are some main points from the collection’s “Preface” and “Introduction”:
Sterling’s “Preface”
Sterling, who is a cyberpunk science fiction writer, sets readers up for Gibson’s works. Pay attention to the gloomy picture he portrays, affectionately, of Gibson’s short stories.
- p. xii: “[Gibson’s] densely packed baroque stories….[evoke]…a credible future….that many scifi writers have been ducking for years.”
- p. xxi: “[I]n the Sprawl stories we see a future that is recognizably and painstakingly drawn from the modern condition.”
- Ponder this a second…Is this a world you believe we inhabit? Obviously, the Sprawl is an allusion to modern life, but are we that far gone?
- What comes with sprawl and overpopulation? Pollution, disease, poverty, resource depletion.
- p. xiii: “[Gibson’s] characters are a pirate’s crew of losers, hustlers, spin-offs, castoffs, and lunatics.”
- “In Gibson’s work we find ourselves in the streets and alleys, in a realm of sweaty, white-knuckled survival.”
- They sound like great people to me. Please notice the way men are portrayed versus how women are portrayed.
- p. xiv: “[Gibson] is a devotee of…’invisible literature’: that permeating flow of scientific reports, government documents, and specialized advertising that shapes our culture below the level of recognition.”
- There’s a lot of stuff packed into the above quote, but I want you to focus on “…that shapes our culture…” because Sterling is pointing to broad cultural communication that shapes our view of the world but we don’t recognize it. For instance:
- Advertising…how else do they sell all that unnecessary stuff to us?
- Science…who filters the new scientific information to us? Are we able to understand high-level science without advanced degrees?
- Government…why do we continue to vote for the same politicians over and over again? The same people who dictate where our tax dollars go, what the rules are, and how we can voice our concerns.
- There’s a lot of stuff packed into the above quote, but I want you to focus on “…that shapes our culture…” because Sterling is pointing to broad cultural communication that shapes our view of the world but we don’t recognize it. For instance:
William Gibson’s “Introduction”
- p. xvi: “The writers who made science fiction do what for me was its most magic thing seemed to inhabit a more urban universe, a universe with more moving parts, one in which more questions could be asked (if far fewer definitively answered).”
- p. xvii: On his four-year writing of “Johnny Mnemonic”–“I had paused to observe, as an age-designated noncombatant, the phenomenon of punk rock, which also has its place in the source code.”
- If you aren’t sure what punk rock was (past tense…there hasn’t been punk rock–real punk rock–since 1986), it’s irreverent music (or noise) that attempts to give voice to the angst of a generation, but, being avant-garde, it’s doomed to fall out of vogue and die from its followers maturity.
- It’s a gritty, in-your-face type of music that cares little for artistry and more about velocity and volume.
Next Class
We’re going to shift gears and discuss writing on Wednesday (3/11). Please have at least 5 pages that you can pull up on the computer.
Keep on reading Neuromancer! In that short story collection Burning Chrome are “New Rose Hotel,” “Johnny Mnemonic,” and “Burning Chrome”–which are all part of Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy. The three novels in the series are Neuromancer (1984), Count Zero (1986), and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988). I’m stunned at how much The Matrix is inspired by Neuromancer, but I don’t think the The Wachowskis ever gave Gibson credit. Oh well, it isn’t the first time. Enjoy!