Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


kent1337654951.pdf (1.02 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Brains, Minds, and Computers in Literary and Science Fiction Neuronarratives

Ellis, Jason W.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1337654951

Abstract Details

2012, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English.
This dissertation situates the emergence of the science fiction literary genre in the biology of the human brain and its evolved cognitive abilities and it specifically investigates the fiction of three renowned, twentieth-century writers—Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, and William Gibson—published between 1940 and 1988. While grounded in literary history, this dissertation is an interdisciplinary project that also draws on neuroscientific topics and science and technology studies. Beginning with what I call a cognitive approach to science fiction, I argue that a combination of effects—the brain’s adaptation for narrative and imagination, humanity’s co-evolution with technology, and technology’s rapid and largely unanticipated change—led to the emergence of science fiction in the early part of the twentieth century. While this approach to the origins of the science fiction genre is new, I demonstrate that its functional aspects are rooted in the ideas of the genre’s arguably most influential editors: Hugo Gernsback and John W. Campbell, Jr. Unlike the majority of scholarly discussions and critiques on Asimov’s, Dick’s, and Gibson’s fictions, I examine their work from a perspective that emphasizes the brain’s physicality over the psychology of mind by deploying my cognitive approach. In the chapter on Asimov’s fiction, I argue that while many of his works give prominence to robots, these fictions are primarily about their human counterparts and the human brain. I argue in the chapter on Dick that while he emphasizes the centrality of the human brain to our recreation and experience of reality within our consciousness, he vacillates between the good and ill of technology’s influence on our realization of the self and our empathy for others. In the chapter on Gibson’s writing, I argue that while he focuses on the fetishistic technologies of computer hacking, he carefully constructs cyberspace as a representation projected and perceived interactively within the human brain. These chapters allow me to conclude with a discussion on the role metaphor plays in connecting science fiction’s extrapolations to new technologies via the circulation of culture.
Donald Hassler, M (Committee Chair)
Tammy Clewell (Committee Member)
Kevin Floyd (Committee Member)
Eric Mintz, M (Committee Member)
Arvind Bansal (Committee Member)
308 p.
Computer Science; Evolution and Development; Literature; Technology
science fiction; neuronarrative; neuroscience; literature; literary theory; brain; mind; genre; literary history

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ellis, J. W. (2012). Brains, Minds, and Computers in Literary and Science Fiction Neuronarratives [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1337654951

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ellis, Jason. Brains, Minds, and Computers in Literary and Science Fiction Neuronarratives. 2012. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1337654951.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ellis, Jason. "Brains, Minds, and Computers in Literary and Science Fiction Neuronarratives." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1337654951

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1337654951
5,251
© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.