Tag Archives: Greg Egan

Primitivism and the Posthuman

Posted on by
1

A few semesters ago I took a philosophy course titled Nature, Technology, and Society, which covered Langdon Winner’s “Are Humans Obsolete?”. Interestingly enough the section of the course that we covered him in was under primitivism. I thought this was interesting considering Winner’s lean toward posthumanism, but where I found a connection was in the rejection of technological progression. I realized that Winner’s approach focuses more on technology’s manipulative nature over humans after reading this in the context of this class. Continue reading →

Analysis of “Learning to Be Me”

Posted on by
1

Greg Egan’s story “Learning to Be Me” had a particularly indescribable effect on me as a reader, and I would therefore like to look at this story through a writer’s standpoint. Egan, through relatively few words, outlines an entire biography of his protagonist character, and this depiction of the character allows the reader to become sympathetic with him. Starting at the beginning, Egan is able to build tension in the story which stems directly from the thoughts and feelings of his characters. Continue reading →

Is a Successor Species Inevitable?

Posted on by
1

In Representations of the Post/Human, Elaine L. Graham explains her use of the term “post/human” instead of simply “post-human” on page 11: “…I hope to suggest a questioning both of inevitability of a successor species…” Is it truly unavoidable that there will be a successor species? This is the question I’d like to explore in this post. Continue reading →

The Human as the Creator

Posted on by
1

After reading “Are Humans Obsolete?” and “Learning to Be Me” on the blog today, I read the introduction to Graham’s Representations of the Post/Human.  Although the introduction did explore many different aspects of the works that we read for today, it also mentioned during the “Re-Enchantment” sub-heading more about the human agent in creating technology. Continue reading →