William Gibson

Feminist Duality of Molly Millions in Gibson's Neuromancer

by Lauren Baker

Discussing duality in a feminist reading of Molly Millions from William Gibson's Neuromancer. Discussing duality in a feminist reading of Molly Millions from William Gibson's Neuromancer.

Science Fiction as Myth: Cultural Logic in Gibson's Neuromancer

by Rafael C. Alvarado

in Science Fiction and Computing: Essays on Interlinked Domains. By David L. Ferro, Eric G. Swedin. MacFarland Press.

Data Transcendence and the Real

by Colin Drumm

Imagining the Post-Human: Cyborgs and the Utopian Project

by Emily Goldsher-Diamond

Originally written during undergraduate at Sarah Lawrence for a course on Utopian Fiction

This paper seeks to determine whether the human condition can be fundamentally altered, or completely erased, and... more This paper seeks to determine whether the human condition can be fundamentally altered, or completely erased, and whether liberty is dependent on the concept of humanity.  Furthermore, I will explore the cyborg within the confines of the Utopian Project. 

William Gibson's Paternity Test

by Raymond Malewitz

published in 'Configurations' (Winter 2011)

Contemporary culture views DNA through a strange temporal logic: on the one hand, technologies of DNA identification... more Contemporary culture views DNA through a strange temporal logic: on the one hand, technologies of DNA identification and sequencing testify to fundamental transformations in the way we understand biology, anthropology, law, and medicine—we live in “the DNA age”; and on the other, these technologies have revealed as much about the past as they have about the present or future, gesturing backwards to scenes of conception, crime, and evolutionary branching. The essay shows how this double temporal logic operates within William Gibson’s electronic poem Agrippa. It concludes that the poem’s stanzas form a metaphorical DNA fingerprint that reveals Gibson’s life to be, paradoxically, a novel repetition of his father’s and grandfather’s lives.

Leaver, T. (2004) 'The Infinite Plasticity of the Digital": Posthuman Possibilities, Embodiment and Technology In William Gibson's Interstitial Trilogy', Reconstruction, 4, 3.

by Tama Leaver

Ever since William Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" in his debut novel Neuromancer, his work has been... more Ever since William Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" in his debut novel Neuromancer, his work has been seen by many as a yardstick for postmodern and, more recently, posthuman possibilities. This article critically examines Gibson's second trilogy (Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties), focusing on the way digital technologies and identity intersect and interact, with particular emphasis on the role of embodiment. Using the work of Donna Haraway, Judith Butler and N. Katherine Hayles, it is argued that while William Gibson's second trilogy is infused with posthuman possibilities, the role of embodiment is not relegated to one choice among many. Rather the specific materiality of individual existence is presented as both desirable and ultimately necessary to a complete existence, even in a posthuman present or future.

Leaver, T. (2003) ‘Interstitial Spaces and Multiple Histories in William Gibson’s VirtualLight, Idoru and All Tomorrow’s Parties‘, Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, 9, pp. 118-130,

by Tama Leaver

Education and the Politics of Cyberpunk

by David R Cole

The importance in contemporary education of critical theory as a pedagogic basis for the analysis of textual and... more The importance in contemporary education of critical theory as a pedagogic basis for the analysis of textual and cultural resources creates a space for educationalists to implement meaningful curriculum content. The genre of cyberpunk acts on this level, yet also activates a complex micropolitical field that will affect participants in these lessons. For example, education using cyberpunk assumes that computers shall be set into place in terms of the learning process, but contests the social functionalism of this placement as a means to enhanced, large scale capitalist organization

The Network and the Archive: The Specter of Imperial Management in William Gibson's Neuromancer

by Andrew Strombeck

Science Fiction Studies 37.2 [111] ( July2010): 275-295.

This article argues that William Gibson’s Neuromancer registers a tension between two historical moments of managerial... more This article argues that William Gibson’s Neuromancer registers a tension between two historical moments of managerial power: while steeped in the moment of the “network society,” with its simulated authority and flattened hierarchies, the text exhibits nostalgia for the more hierarchical moment of imperialism, best manifested in its lauded treatment of Straylight. While the network society provides mobility primarily for elites, it nevertheless offers possibility for subaltern masses to be visible within its networks. The network society, then, would seem to offer less masculine domination than the earlier moment of imperialism, an idea Gibson reinforces by dissolving the globalized manager Armitage. And yet managerial power does not dissipate with Armitage; the hacker Case, seemingly an outsider to power, emerges as a kind of manager by the novel’s end. Similarly, the subaltern subjects who seemed to gain power throughout the book’s plot—most notably the Rastafarians—are ultimately subordinated to the imperial power represented by Straylight.

Paranoia In Spook Country: William Gibson and the Technological Sublime of the War on Terror

by Em McAvan

The Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 46.3 (2010)

After September 11, American writer William Gibson turned from the science fiction with which he had made his name to... more After September 11, American writer William Gibson turned from the science fiction with which he had made his name to the realistic. Gibson's recent novel Spook Country turns towards GPS technology and its potential to track terrorists and containers to any point of the globe, using it as an entry into a post-9/11 milieu in which private companies are not so easily distinguished from the government. Spook Country presents a version of what Fredric Jameson has called a “technological sublime”, in which the ungraspable nature of electronic communications in global late capitalism produces an awe akin to earlier romantic notions of the sublime. Spook Country traces the paranoia of the war on terror across the world, in which the virtual and real have merged in the form of ever-present technologies of surveillance. The terror in the war on terror, I argue, has become technology itself.

"Pattern Recognition", de William Gibson: El presente presentido con jet-lag

by José Angel García Landa

William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition": Jet-Lagged Intimations of the Present
 
This paper... more William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition": Jet-Lagged Intimations of the Present
 
This paper is a commentary of William Gibson's novel "Pattern Recognition" (2003), with a special emphasis on the ideology of postmodernity and on networked globalization, on issues of symbolism and on the reflexive dimension of pattern recognition in the narrative semiotics of the novel itself, and in its aesthetic project.

Note: Downloadable document is in Spanish.

Keywords: Gibson; Postmodernity; Apophenia; Reflexivity; Globalization;