Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens and Others in Popular Culture

Graham, Elaine L. Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens and Others in Popular Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2002. Reviewed Javier A. Martínez, "Technology and Theology (or Lack Thereof)," Science Fiction Studies #92 = 31.1 (March 2004): 132-37, our source for this entry.

Probably most relevant for Graham's take on cyberpunk, for applying ideas of technophilia and technophobia to Mr. Data in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION; and for her discussion of Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager® (Martínez, p. 134-35).

Quoting Martínez in the review linked above:

ST:V takes place in a universe, Graham argues, where “geographical estrangement from the Federation diminishes the power of external authority” (149). In this situation, Seven of Nine, the Borg character, is free to explore what is for Graham the most human of elements, the value of belonging (152). Whereas Data’s journey toward the human is little else than a “perpetuation of modernity’s most highly valued precepts of human nature” (153), Seven of Nine comes to embody the show’s driving idea, “the quest to discern some degree of purpose to the universe amid the complexity and fragility of everyday experience” (153). While I agree with Graham’s reading of Data, I do not share her enthusiasm for ST:V, nor am I convinced by her reading of the show. Still, Graham does a nice job in this chapter and I certainly recommend it to students and critics of the Star Trek mythos. (Martínez pp. 134-35)

For cyberpunk and technological optimism if not always technophilia, note the chapter, "Nietzsche Gets a Modem: Transhumanism and the Technological Sublime," where Martínez notes that Graham notes some disturbing patterns of thought in contemporary scientific geekdom, especially the disregard for ethnic, gender, sexual, and economic difference that often result when entertaining fantasies of technologically-based physical transcendence. Most disturbing is her insightful observation that such rhetoric has an origin point in the pseudo-scientifically legitimated racism of the late nineteenth century: “Such a vision of the post/human era is therefore in many respects a cybernetic version of social Darwinism, anticipating a future meritocracy founded upon the survival of the fittest, represented by the intellectual and psychological superiority of postbiological humanity” (160). (Martínez 135) — Although Martínez notes that the following chapter (surprisingly) has cyberpunk rebelling against commercialized SF (Martínez p. 135).

RDE, Initial Compiler, 19July19