A construção do imaginário ciborgue: o pós-humano na ficção científica, de Frankenstein ao século XXI

Abstract

The present research aims to investigate a supposedly new statute of being in the ambit of cyberculture, the so-called "cyborg" or "post-human". Considered a fundamental part of culture today, according to Pierre Lévy, and also called digital culture by a number of thinkers, and also part of post-modernity, by Scott Bukatman and Larry McCaffery, among others, cyberculture is still viewed as a kind of independent, self-contained module of the culture, but the extension of its impact permeates all areas of post-modern society. In this research we investigate the definitions of the words "cyborg" and "post-human" in cyberculture, according to Donna Haraway, Katherine N. Hayles, and Lucia Santaella, as well as in science fiction, according to H. P. Lovecraft, Adam Roberts, Bruce Sterling, and Jeff Prucher, among others. How does the new devices (from cellphones to prosthetics) and the new communication modes (as the Web) interfere in the perception of time and space of human beings in the 21st century? And how does science fiction has anticipated these needs a new human being have, sort of catering to them through the display of a whole plethora of problems and proposals of solutions?