Philip K. Dick: Canonical Writer of the Digital Age (Studies in Major Literary Authors)

Kucukalic looks beyond the received criticism and stereotypes attached to Philip K. Dick and his work and shows, using a wealth of primary documents including previously unpublished letters and interviews, that Philip K. Dick is a serious and relevant philosophical and cultural thinker whose writing offer us important insights into contemporary digital culture. Evaluating five novels that span Dick's career—from Martian Time Slip (1964) to Valis (1981)—Kucukalic explores the the intersections of identity, narrative, and technology in order to ask two central, but uncharted "Dickian" questions: What is reality? and What is human? Kucukalic looks beyond the received criticism and stereotypes attached to Philip K. Dick and his work and shows, using a wealth of primary documents including previously unpublished letters and interviews, that Philip K. Dick is a serious and relevant philosophical and cultural thinker whose writing offer us important insights into contemporary digital culture. Evaluating five novels that span Dick's career--from Martian Time Slip (1964) to Valis (1981)--Kucukalic explores the the intersections of identity, narrative, and technology in order to ask two central, but uncharted "Dickian" questions: What is reality? and What is human? Language & Literature "Lejla Kucukalic looks beyond the received criticism and stereotypes attached to Philip K. Dick and his work and shows, using a wealth of primary documents including previously unpublished letters and interviews, that Philip K. Dick is a serious and relevant philosophical and cultural thinker whose writing offer us important insights into contemporary digital culture. Evaluating five novels that span Dick's career - from Martian Time Slip (1964) to Valis (1981) - Kucukalic explores the intersections of identity, narrative, and technology in order to ask two central, but uncharted "Dickian" questions: What is reality? And what is human?"--BOOK JACKET Philip K. Dick, canonical writer of the digital age Biography of a writer Martian time slip: "the mindset of otherness" Do androids dream of electric sheep: "mechanical universe and its discontents?" A maze of death: "life is a dream, but is it better that way?" A scanner darkly: "the reel identity" The search for truth as an antidote for suffering in valis. In this timely study, Kucakulic examines the major themes of Dick's novels--including critique of consumer society, mass media, and technology--ultimately concluding that transcending these concerns is Dick's preoccupation with the traditional m