Identity Knowledge and Identity of Posthuman Subjects in Cyberpunk Fiction

Document Type : علمی - پژوهشی

Authors

1 PhD Candidate- English Language and Literature - Shahid Beheshti University

2 Assistant Professor- English Language and Literature - Shahid Beheshti University

Abstract

Cyberpunk is one of the latest genres in the development of science fiction. In it, characters deal with various cybernetic and technological advancements with futuristic affinities. In this genre, characters experience such futuristic advancements through a series of images and surface values. In the present study, it is asked what the status of characters’ knowledge and identity is in the cyberpunk world. Through utilization of ideas of Garfield Benjamin and William Haney, two well-known critics in Cyberculture and Posthuman/Cyborg Identity, the study believes that cyberpunk citizens’ knowledge and definition from their identities is shattered and non-essential. Cyberpunk citizens have fluid movement between their various identities and have a simultaneous sense of belonging and non-belonging to all of them. All these identities are formed around the hollowness and emptiness of the citizens’ identity core, which is the only essence of posthuman subjects.

Keywords