Between sacrum and simulacrum: the space of chaos in Jacek Dukaj’s novella The Cathedral

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-108
Author(s):  
Mariusz M. Leś
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Fractal Structure ◽  
The Body ◽  
Short Film ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Catholic Priest ◽  
Technological Singularity ◽  
Holistic Transformation

The author of the article analyses Jacek Dukaj’s science fiction novella The Cathedral (2000), which inspired the famous animated short film released under the same title in 2002. The eponymous pseudo-building was founded on the grave of Izmir Predú, a man who has sacrificed himself to save his travel companions’ lives. It is built using programmed nanoparticles and has formed itself – chaotically – into a cathedral-like asymmetrical, fractal structure. The novella’s main character, a Catholic priest, has been sent onto a planetoid to validate rumours about Predú’s holiness. The author of the article argues that the process of incarnating the protagonist into the Cathedral’s body leads him to the point of holistic transformation of the body, psyche and knowledge, similar to technological singularity, which is indistinguishable from a mystical, religious act. It is limited to earthly life, though, and brings the risk (as a transhuman act) of losing humanity. Jacek Dukaj offers the reader a few clues, but they are inconclusive. The reader’s interpretative hesitance therefore mirrors the protagonist’s ambiguous transformation. There is no reason to name the novella a religious one, although transhuman messianism plays an important role in it.

scholarly journals A Freak Show in District 9

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 136-148
Author(s):  
Jessica Carducci
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Body ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Freak Show ◽  
The Way

In District 9, the body of the main character, Wikus van de Merwe, becomes a battleground for the competing cultures of human and alien. But while it is widely recognized that the film is a science fiction metaphor for the Apartheid, less discussed are the parallels between Wikus’s story and that of the historical freak. This essay looks at the way in which Wikus’s transformation and clashing identities make him the star of Johannesburg’s own alien freak show.

scholarly journals Effect of changes in the fractal structure of a littoral zone in the course of lake succession on the abundance, body size sequence and biomass of beetles

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e5662
Author(s):  
Joanna Pakulnicka ◽  
Andrzej Zawal
Keyword(s):  
Fractal Dimension ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Fractal Structure ◽  
Lake Management ◽  
Open Water ◽  
Taxonomic Diversity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Water Beetles ◽  
Water Surface Area ◽  
Depth Analysis

Dystrophic lakes undergo natural disharmonic succession, in the course of which an increasingly complex and diverse, mosaic-like pattern of habitats evolves. In the final seral stage, the most important role is played by a spreading Sphagnum mat, which gradually reduces the lake’s open water surface area. Long-term transformations in the primary structure of lakes cause changes in the structure of lake-dwelling fauna assemblages. Knowledge of the succession mechanisms in lake fauna is essential for proper lake management. The use of fractal concepts helps to explain the character of fauna in relation to other aspects of the changing complexity of habitats. Our 12-year-long study into the succession of water beetles has covered habitats of 40 selected lakes which are diverse in terms of the fractal dimension. The taxonomic diversity and density of lake beetles increase parallel to an increase in the fractal dimension. An in-depth analysis of the fractal structure proved to be helpful in explaining the directional changes in fauna induced by the natural succession of lakes. Negative correlations appear between the body size and abundance. An increase in the density of beetles within the higher dimension fractals is counterbalanced by a change in the size of individual organisms. As a result, the biomass is constant, regardless of the fractal dimension.

scholarly journals The Concept of “Thrownness” in Algis Budrys's Short Story “Wall of Crystal, Eye of Night”

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (45) ◽  
pp. 111-121
Author(s):  
Svetozar Poštič
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Meaning Of Life ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Being And Time ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Physical Frailty ◽  
New Horizons ◽  
German Philosopher

This paper analyses the concept of thrownness and the related notions of immediacy and actuality in a 1961 short science fiction story “Wall of Crystal, Eye of Night” by Algis Budrys. It first defines the concept of thrownness (Geworfenheit), created and coined by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger in his classic book Being and Time, and it explains how this notion can be employed in literary analysis in general and applied to this work in particular. The article then analyses how certain stylistic devices in the short story, namely similes, change of pace and the presentation of an inner conflict in the main character, contribute to the feeling of authenticity. In other words, it attempts to exhibit the means used in a prose work to make it seem more realistic and immediate. Finally, the work also argues that science fiction is in many ways more real than other fictional works. Although it belongs to the genre that has traditionally been denied serious literary merit, the novel view and interpretation of this story aims to disclose new horizons of artistic expression that illuminate human mental and physical frailty and stimulate a valuable inquiry into the meaning of life.

Eugenic Nostalgia: Self-Narration and Internalized Ableism in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 437-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Kanyusik
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Genetically Engineered ◽  
The Body ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Disability Identity

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson has recently argued that Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go deconstructs ableism’s binary structure by postulating the existence of clone characters who occupy an abject position in a eugenic dystopia precisely because their genetically engineered, idealized able bodies exist to be used to “cure” the disabilities of others. The article builds on Garland-Thomson’s work, discussing the role of science fiction in Ishiguro’s book as a means to explore how ableist narratives contribute to cultural norms that enable an overt disciplining of disabled bodies that still occurs, despite it no longer being socially acceptable, and posits protagonist Kathy H.’s story as a narrative of disability identity that exposes the contradictory nature of a belief in the able body and its opposition to disability. Putatively able-bodied, Kathy narrates her experience of the world from a subject position that undermines a stable construction of the body within an ableist framework, ultimately showing these distinctions to be untenable. By discussing the role of first-person perspective in Ishiguro’s novel as a means to interrogate internalized cultural narratives that perpetuate ableist practices, the article examines how cultural notions of ability and disability function as terms that define through exclusion the citizen-subject in liberal democratic societies.

Secretions

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-158
Author(s):  
Rex Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
Forensic Analysis ◽  
Dna Profiling ◽  
The Body ◽  
Autobiographical Texts ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

DNA profiling, in which individual being is identified by its cellular structures, was first developed by the geneticist Alec Jeffreys in the 1980s. That this source of identity also forms the instructions through which living organisms are generated has complicated profiling’s place in the cultural imaginary of the late twentieth century. So, while profiling actually deals only in non-coding regions of the genome—matter often referred to as ‘junk DNA’—the significance of DNA as a substance of forensic analysis, in the late twentieth century imaginary, is its resonance as the apparent blueprint of existence. The notable features that this blurring of concepts brings about include a conceptualization of identity as a mass of information; notions to do with codes and coding; the presence of the body in the fluids which spill beyond its bounds; and a sense of the body as an archive of heredity and primitivism. In writing specifically about genetic research, Richard Powers’s The Gold Bug Variations (1991) serves a dual function in this chapter, as both an explicatory document and thematic example. But the more substantive analysis is reserved for the work of J. G. Ballard which, from its science fiction origins in novels such as The Drowned World (1962), through the controversial era of Crash (1973), to its trilogy of autobiographical texts (Empire of the Sun (1984), The Kindness of Women (1991), and Miracles of Life (2008)) articulates a form of identity that has close, though often oblique, affinities with all the most prominent features of DNA profiling.

Flânerie for Cyborgs

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 209-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Shields
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Body ◽  
Work Place ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Literary Figure ◽  
Social Science Fiction ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
A Site ◽  
Clinic Hospital

As a literary figure or conceit, Haraway’s cyborg is kin to Dumas’ and Balzac’s flâneur. As a social science fiction, crossing and mixing categories, the cyborg is an abject quasi-body who does not fit the Enlightenment model of the political subject and actor. The ‘Manifesto’ has a geography of sites - Home, Market, Paid Work Place, State, School, Clinic-Hospital and Church - which this article updates and to which it adds the Body and the Web. However, Haraway’s ‘cyborg-analysis’ directs attention to the nanotechnological scale of biotechnology. The spatialization implied in the ‘Manifesto’ is more like a surface, a site of regeneration, not a space of the body or of rebirth or the space of institutions such as the Market or School. The cyborg cannot be an Enlightenment political actor, but challenges the traditions, scale and space of the public sphere even as she carries ethical qualities and potentials for less normative forms of politics.

scholarly journals Human-Alien Encounters in Science Fiction: A Postcolonial Perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-203
Author(s):  
Borbála Bökös
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
The Body ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
James Cameron ◽  
The Two Cultures ◽  
Science Fiction Films ◽  
Abel Ferrara ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract An (un)conventional encounter between humans and alien beings has long been one of the main thematic preoccupations of the genre of science fiction. Such stories would thus include typical invasion narratives, as in the case of the three science fiction films I will discuss in the present paper: the Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956; Philip Kaufman, 1978; Abel Ferrara, 1993), The Host (Andrew Niccol, 2013), and Avatar (James Cameron, 2009). I will examine the films in relation to postcolonial theories, while attempting to look at the ways of revisiting one’s history and culture (both alien and human) in the films’ worlds that takes place in order to uncover and heal the violent effects of colonization. In my reading of the films I will shed light on the specific processes of identity formation (of an individual or a group), and the possibilities of individual and communal recuperation through memories, rites of passages, as well as hybridization. I will argue that the colonized human or alien body can serve either as a mediator between the two cultures, or as an agent which fundamentally distances two separate civilizations, thus irrevocably bringing about the loss of identity, as well as the lack of comprehension of cultural differences.

scholarly journals Posthumanizm i „syntezoidalny mimetyzm” w komiksie „Vision” Toma Kinga i Gabriela Hernandeza Walty

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 467-479
Author(s):  
Oskar Meller
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

Cultural texts on the subject of posthuman can be found long before the post-anthropocentric turn in humanistic research. Literary explanations of posthumanism have entered the conventional canon not only in terms of the science-fiction classics. However, a different line follows the tradition of presenting posthumanist existence in the comic book medium. Scott Jeffrey accurately notes that most comic superheroes are post- or trans-human. Therefore, the transgression of human existence into a posthumanoid being is presented. However, in the case of the less culturally recognizable character of Vision, a synthezoid from the Marvel’s Avengers team, combining the body of the android and human consciousness, the vector of transgression is reversed. This article is an attempt to analyze the way the humanization process of this hero is narrative in the Vision series of screenwriter Tom King and cartoonist Gabriel Hernandez Walta. On the one hand, King mimetic reproduces the sociological panorama of American suburbs, showing the process of adaptation of the synthesoid family to the realities of full-time work and neighborly intercourse, on the other, he emphasizes the robotic limits of Vision humanization. Ultimately, the narrative line follows the cracks between these two plans, allowing King to present, with the help of inhuman heroes, one of the most human stories in the Marvel superhero universe.

scholarly journals The Kajian Sosiopragmatik Strategi Tindak Tutur Kritik Karakter Antagonis Ibu Jawa; Bu Tejo dalam Film Tilik

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-128
Author(s):  
Nora Dita Zakiah Ridho'i
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Research Data ◽  
Negative Evaluation ◽  
Short Film ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Indirect Speech Acts ◽  
Evaluation Strategies ◽  
Social Motive ◽  
The Social

  Abstract The sociopragmatic study is one that can explore the reflection of local wisdom that can be learned by the Javanese and even nationally. This research data is working from the Short Film - Tilik (2018) by focusing on the main character who is also the antagonist, Bu Tejo. Performed with an image of cynical Javanese mothers, it is good to see how the strategy is used and what are the motivations rely upon behind the utterances. Analysis of the study of speech act of criticism strategies can be used to hone of forms this characters often use. To conduct this research, the method used is transcribing all dialogues that are focused on only Bu Tejo's dialogue. There were 81 strategies of critical speech acts classified based on the form of direct criticism speech acts and indirect criticism speech acts. Direct speech acts criticism includes negative evaluation strategies, disapproval, expressions of disagreement, identify of problems, statements of difficulty and consequences. Meanwhile, the strategy of indirect speech acts criticism are corrections, identifying standards, demanding for change, request for change, suggestions of change, expressions of certainty and asking/presupposing. In examining the narrative using these strategies, it is also discovered the social motive implied by the main character of this antagonist through his critical utterances. Keywords: Speech act of criticism, sociopragmatics, film

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