Pigs,plants and parallel processing: an exploration of the tensions between Western liberal humanism and critical post humanism in dub steps

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dc.contributor.authorWorster, Amy Loureth
dc.date.accessioned2019-05-21T09:11:48Z
dc.date.available2019-05-21T09:11:48Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.descriptionA research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in Digital Arts to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2018en_ZA
dc.description.abstractThis research report presents a critical thematic analysis of Andrew Miller’s science fiction (SF) novel Dub Steps with the intention of demonstrating that the book’s central themes are interrelated and evoke various tensions between the ideological projects of western liberal humanism and critical posthumanism. Furthermore, this study examines how the novel’s setting of Johannesburg articulates with its themes and complicates the unfolding drama of the liberal humanist subject in crisis, especially in connection to South Africa’s troubled history of colonialism and apartheid. Representations of race – specifically blackness and whiteness – are at stake in the interactions between Johannesburg and the central themes of Dub Steps, and the historical and material politics of race in South Africa are brought to bear upon the novel’s depiction of a posthuman future. This study finds that Dub Steps may be read as a posthuman SF fantasy in which the vestiges of colonialism and apartheid are finally undone and socio-economic inequalities persisting in the post-apartheid sphere are finally rebalanced. However, it is also the view of this research report that the progressive potential of the novel is undermined by its technophobic ethos and a reversion to harmful stereotypes about black people in its vision of a new world orderen_ZA
dc.description.librarianMT 2019en_ZA
dc.format.extentOnline resource (144 leaves)
dc.identifier.citationWorster, Amy Loureth (2018) Pigs, plants and parallel processing: an exploration of the tensions between Western liberal humanism and critical posthumanism in Dub Steps, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, https://hdl.handle.net/10539/27109
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/27109
dc.language.isoenen_ZA
dc.subject.lcshHumanism
dc.subject.lcshCritical pedagogy
dc.subject.lcshLiteracy--Social aspects
dc.titlePigs,plants and parallel processing: an exploration of the tensions between Western liberal humanism and critical post humanism in dub stepsen_ZA
dc.typeThesisen_ZA
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