The study of French science fiction - even in France - remains an underexploited field. Only recently have French literary scholars been able to gain recognition for the validity of studying SF, but their works are often literary histories. This is the first book-length study to take into account both French and Anglo-American intellectual trends, theories, and SF scholarship and apply them to a corpus of French works. It shows how contemporary French SF imagines two broad philosophical inquiries into the powerful, yet terrifying geological age of the Anthropocene: posthumanism and transhumanism. While the posthumanist perspective calls attention to the interdependence and co-evolution of humans and nonhumans within a complex ecosystem of life, the transhumanist view of coping with the Anthropocene offers more pragmatic, tool-based solutions, rather than a reworking of the human imagination. Given the history of philosophical thought's entanglement with literature in France, French SF can tell us a lot about this existential crisis of Anthropos as both destroyer and savior of worlds and bodies alike. With a focus on encounters between humans, nonhumans, and posthumans in selected works, this book investigates both the immaterial (the psychological state of the mind) and material (the body) stakes of posthumanist or transhumanist thinking in French SF.
| ISBN: | 9781802078497 |
| Publication date: | 2nd May 2023 |
| Author: | Christina Lord |
| Publisher: | Liverpool University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 176 pages |
| Series: | Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies |
| Genres: |
Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Literary studies: from c 2000 Film, television, radio genres: Science fiction, fantasy and horror Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers |
The study of French science fiction - even in France - remains an underexploited field. Only recently have French literary scholars been able to gain recognition for the validity of studying SF, but their works are often literary histories. This is the first book-length study to take into account both French and Anglo-American intellectual trends, theories, and SF scholarship and apply them to a corpus of French works. It shows how contemporary French SF imagines two broad philosophical inquiries into the powerful, yet terrifying geological age of the Anthropocene: posthumanism and transhumanism. While the posthumanist perspective calls attention to the interdependence and co-evolution of humans and nonhumans within a complex ecosystem of life, the transhumanist view of coping with the Anthropocene offers more pragmatic, tool-based solutions, rather than a reworking of the human imagination. Given the history of philosophical thought's entanglement with literature in France, French SF can tell us a lot about this existential crisis of Anthropos as both destroyer and savior of worlds and bodies alike. With a focus on encounters between humans, nonhumans, and posthumans in selected works, this book investigates both the immaterial (the psychological state of the mind) and material (the body) stakes of posthumanist or transhumanist thinking in French SF.
Reimagining the Human in Contemporary French Science Fiction features in the following genres: Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Literary studies: from c 2000, Film, television, radio genres: Science fiction, fantasy and horror, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers
Reimagining the Human in Contemporary French Science Fiction is available in Hardback
Reimagining the Human in Contemporary French Science Fiction was written by Christina Lord and published by Liverpool University Press
Reimagining the Human in Contemporary French Science Fiction has 176 pages
Yes it is part of Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies series