Science and Fiction: Science and Empire
Julie Hipp, Aurora Univ.
jhipp@aurora.edu
 
The Science of the Apocalypse
Peter Y. Paik, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
 
Although the broad sweep of modernity was once largely defined in terms of secularization and technological advancement, in the case of Japanese science fiction narratives, the rise of a hyper-
technologized society leads not to the supremacy of a totally immanent view of reality, but rather opens the door to unexpected forms of transcendence. In the Japanese anime series Neon Genesis 
Evangelion, no aspect of reality escapes technologization, including the symbols and experiences associated with the divine. In this presentation, I will discuss how the motifs and doctrines of 
Christianity, especially that of the apocalypse, become converted into metaphors for human mastery, signifying the point at which humanity assumes absolute power over the planet and over the creation 
(and disposal) of life. The symbols of the divine furnished by a religion become the technologies for human self-divinization. This narrative demystifies the topoi of apocalypse by revealing its catastrophes 
as the result of purely human effort.
 

The Cultural Politics of “Hyper-”: Hypergenreship, Hypernarrativity and A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again

Kristen Schaffenberger, University of Illinois at Chicago

This paper rests on the assumption that text can occupy virtual spaces as hypertext, and it seeks to understand how genre and narrativity might occupy similarly virtual spaces. If both hypertext escapes linear (i.e., temporal or causal) coherence, what are the implications for genre and the narrator’s voice? Might a model of hypergenreship open up the potential for new genres, or might it simply collapse the lines between genres, blurring the distinctions between similar genres? How do particular genres rely on specific types of narrativity? When a narrator’s voice changes, does a change in genre necessarily follow? In order to begin to answer some of these questions, the first section of this paper will examine the theoretical problems of attempting to distinguish among similar genres that are centered on writing about the self: autobiography, memoir, life writing and new journalism. Each of these genres relies upon a narrator who discusses his or her own life and experiences, often with the aim of understanding the self or a particular situation.

In the second section, I will apply a model of hypergenreship to essays from David Foster Wallace’s A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. Although Wallace’s dense, decidedly postmodern fiction has been the subject of much critical praise, there has been little work on this collection of essays. As I will argue, part of the reason for this lack of critical work is the fluidity of their narrative voice and its consequence on their genre. As Wallace’s authorial voice changes within these pieces, the reader is left with a virtual space filled by many voices from one narrator, and the essays in turn take on characteristics of many of the genres that speak about the self. Hypergenreship is ultimately created by hypernarrativity. The final section of this essay will read Wallace’s essays and the ways they play with narrativity and genre in a larger cultural context. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s work on culture and class, this paper will conclude by attempting to answer for whom Wallace writes and in turn how hypernarration and hypergenreship rigorously enforce class distinctions.

Technology and the Hegemony of Neo-Liberal Imagination in Neil Stephenson's Cryptonomicon
Matthew McAlpin, Stony Brook University 
 
 In contrast to Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow where access to technology is more trans-cultural, by the late nineties, it's impossible for Stephenson to imagine cultures outside neo-liberal 
categories. Stephenson's imagination, shaped by what Alan Liu identifies in The Laws of Cool as the complicit relationship of technology and corporate capitalism, even aboriginal cultures predictably act 
within their own economic self-interest. For Stephenson, neo-liberalism has effectively colonized large portions of the globe not only through military intervention but often more effectively through 
ideological imposition. My paper will investigate the nexus of technology and economy within Cryptonomicon, outlining the neo-liberal imaginary proscribed as common sense. For Stephenson, a 
historical form of imperialism, late twentieth century global neo-liberalism, is seen as hegemonic, monolithic and trans-historical.