Posthuman Worlds

Adolfo Cacheiro

doi:10.5771/9781793649881

Summary

Posthuman Worlds: Roberto Bolaño's Narrative and Virtual Reality presents interpretations of several novels and one short story by Roberto Bolaño. As befits the global setting of most of these narratives, they are analyzed from the perspective of global culture and politics. Particular attention is paid to transnational European politics, as this topic is central to an understanding of the intertwined themes of politics and the law in Bolaño’s work. In Distant Star and “Labyrinth,” these themes exist within the context of a preoccupation with personal identity and ideology. Adolfo Cacheiro utilizes psychoanalytic interpretation and philosophical exegesis to clarify the subjective component of this preoccupation in the aforementioned texts. The law is also a prominent theme of The Savage Detectives, which Cacheiro interprets in relation to mythology. One of the most innovative aspects of this book is the discussion of the role of virtual reality in Amulet and 2666. These novels are read as representations of a posthuman world that manifest an intertextual relationship with science fiction. In 2666 virtual reality unifies the diverse components of a world system in time and space. A phenomenological investigation of this reality supports the conclusion that the principle subject matter of 2666 is a naturalistic theology based on technology.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-4987-4
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-4988-1
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 238
Product type: Book Titles

1. Dedication No access
2. Contents No access
3. Preface No access
4. Acknowledgments No access
5. 1. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
1. Notes No access
1. Lack of Agency No access
2. The Search for a Master-Signifier No access
3. A Racist Journalist No access
4. Two Sides of the Same Coin No access
5. The Circle and the Cross No access
6. The Search for a New Identity No access
7. Trauma Revisited No access
8. Judgment No access
9. Notes No access
1. Historical Background No access
2. The Simulated World No access
3. Virtual Theology and Programming Errors No access
4. Bathrooms and Ontology No access
5. Components of the Revolutionary Subject No access
6. The Convergence of the Revolutionary Subject No access
7. Ties that Bind No access
8. Notes No access
1. The Myth of Atlantis No access
2. The Grail Bearer No access
3. Beyond the Third Dimension No access
4. Coincidence and Causality No access
5. Existential Crisis No access
6. The Realm of the Grail No access
7. Diabolical and Radical Evil No access
8. Breaking the Chain No access
9. Writing and Desire No access
10. Who is Sisyphus? No access
11. The One is . . . No access
12. Substrate Independence No access
13. Notes No access
Conclusion No access Pages 215 - 216
Bibliography No access Pages 217 - 226
Index No access Pages 227 - 236
About the Author No access Pages 237 - 238