Abstract
I consider the literary long time memory relationship of natural and artificial in some dystopian novels, such as Ballard’s Drowned Worlds (1962) and Condominium (1975), Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (1968), Marge Piercy’s He, She and It (1991) and Ian McEwan’s Machines like me (2019). In those novels, I first investigate the portrayed environment labeling the traces of a troubled or enduring nature next to the signs of a technologised space. I then consider the nexus of natural and artificial with regard to the artificial creation: in the novels androids, the golem and robots thematise the main issues of the responsible use of technology, the hybridisation between human beings and machines, the human creativity withstanding the artificial intelligence, the future of digital culture and other relevant topics such as the engagement with inequality and injustice but also with the controversial consequences of technological progress. Criticising the present as regards political and scientific aspects, the dystopic view gets involved in an urgent debate about the future that encompasses many sectors of human knowledge. In this study, I emphasise the relationship of humanities to other knowledge domains.
Presenters
Stefania RutiglianoAssociate Professor, Department of Humanistic Research and Innovation, University of Bari, Bari, Italy
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Dystopia, Environment, Nature, Technology, Artificial Intelligence
