William Gibson and the Future of Contemporary Culture (New American Canon)

William Gibson is frequently described as one of the most influential writers of the past few decades, yet his body of work has only been studied partially and without full recognition of its implications for literature and culture beyond science fiction. It is high time for a book that explores the significance and wide-ranging impact of Gibson’s fiction. In the 1970s and 80s, Gibson, the “Godfather of Cyberpunk,” rejuvenated science fiction. In groundbreaking works such as Neuromancer , which changed science fiction as we knew it, Gibson provided us with a language and imaginary through which it became possible to make sense of the newly emerging world of globalization and the digital and media age. Ever since, Gibson’s reformulation of science fiction has provided us not just with radically innovative visions of the future but indeed with trenchant analyses of our historical present and of the emergence and exhaustion of possible futures. Contributors: Maria Alberto, Andrew M. Butler, Amy J. Elias, Christian Haines, Kylie Korsnack, Mathias Nilges, Malka Older, Aron Pease, Lisa Swanstrom, Takayuki Tatsumi, Sherryl Vint, Phillip E. Wegner, Roger Whitson, Charles Yu "William Gibson is frequently described as one of the most influential writers of the past few decades, yet his oeuvre has only been studied partially and without full recognition of its implications for literature and culture beyond science fiction. It is high time, then, for a book that explores the significance and wide-ranging impact of Gibson's fiction. This book brings together emerging and established literary critics and exciting new voices in contemporary science fiction to discuss the importance of Gibson's work for recent literary and cultural history. In the 1970s and 80s, Gibson, the "Godfather of Cyberpunk," rejuvenated science fiction. In groundbreaking works such as Neuromancer (1984) that changed SF as we knew it, Gibson provided us with a language and imaginary through which it became possible to make sense of the newly emerging world of globalization and the digital and media age. Ever since, Gibson's reformulation of SF has provided us with not just with radically innovative visions of the future but indeed with trenchant analyses of our historical present and of the emergence and exhaustion of possible futures. The essays collected in this book therefore not only trace the influence of Gibson's work on literature and culture over the past four decades, but they also illustrate how Gibson's work helps us understand the historical development of recent culture, such as the transition from the rise of cyberpunk to the new forms of realism that determine literary culture of the 2000s and toward a new turn to SF in the context of the crises of futurity that define the contemporary moment. Understanding Gibson, this book shows, allows us to understand some of the most fundamental historical developments of recent literature and culture, and it thereby offers us new ways of interrogating and understanding our own time"-- Provided by publisher Contents Acknowledgments Foreword... Malka Older: Crime and Dislocation: William Gibson’s Modernity Introduction... Mitch R. Murray and Mathias Nilges: Periodizing Gibson Part I. Gibson and Literary History Chapter 1... Phillip E. Wegner: When It Changed: Science Fiction and the Literary Field, circa 1984 Chapter 2... Kylie Korsnack: No Future but the Alternative: Or, Temporal Leveling in the Work of William Gibson Chapter 3... Mathias Nilges: The Shelf Lives of Futures: William Gibson’s Short Fiction and the Temporality of Genre Chapter 4... Takayuki Tatsumi: The Difference Engine in a Post-Enlightenment Context: Franklin, Emerson, and Gibson and Sterling Part II. Gibson and the Question of Medium Chapter 5... Andrew M. Butler: “A New Rose Hotel Is a New Rose Hotel Is a New Rose Hotel”: Nonplaces in William Gibson’s Screen Adaptations Chapter 6... Maria Alberto and Elizabeth Swanstrom: William Gibson, Science Fiction, and the Evolution of the Digital Humanities Chapter 7... Roger Whitson: Time Critique and the Textures of Alternate History: Media Archaeology in The Difference Engine and The Peripheral Part III. Gibson and the Problem of the Present Chapter 8... Sherryl Vint: Too Big to Fail: The Blue Ant Trilogy and Our Productized Future Chapter 9... Amy J. Elias: Realist Ontology in William Gibson’s The Peripheral Chapter 10... Aron Pease: Cyberspace after Cyberpunk Chapter 11... Christian P. Haines: “Just a Game”: Biopolitics, Video Games, and Finance in William Gibson’s The Peripheral Afterword... Charles Yu: The World Implied Notes Bibliography Index