archives@tulane.edu / 1 / Blas Isasi gutiérrez

When speaking of the future of the human, our attention is often on human beings themselves as a species and their capability to survive in the face of the changes of the world. Our understanding of the human body, space and even our connection with technoscience are vastly transformed by the changes brought by the close and interconnected relationship of human and technology in the contemporary world. From Donna J. Haraway's cyborg to N. Katherine Hayles and Cary Wolfe's discussions on posthumanism, it is undeniable that we have already entered the age of the posthuman. Science fiction as a form of creative writing explores various possible futures of the human species augmented by the advent of technology while posthumanism looks into how the human should respond in view of the changing connection between human and technology, human and animals, human and the earth, and human and nonhuman. Science fiction with a posthuman theme is a unique genre that deals with the human condition in the world of science and technology and its relation to the nonhuman world. This dissertation examines posthumanism, the singularity, and the Anthropocene in science fiction from a thematic perspective. Chapter One reviews the history of cyborg and posthuman theories and the connection between posthumanism and science fiction to illustrate how posthuman discourses and science fiction works develop together. Chapter Two examines the representations of the posthuman body in science fiction along the development of posthuman discourses. Discussions on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Bicentennial Man (1999), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Blade Runner (1982), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), William Gibson's Neuromancer, eXistenZ (1999), and Robert J. Sawyer's WWW Trilogy: Wake, Watch, and Wonder demonstrate four main types of imaginations to illustrate different visions of the posthuman in science fiction: (1) the technologically-made monster, (2) artificial intelligence in an organic body, (3) plugging one's body into the digital realm, and (4) embodiment of the nonhuman. Chapter Three argues for an alternative perspective other than the insistent privileging of the human in posthuman science fiction. From humanistic values and anthropocentric biases to the WWW Trilogy's embrace of the singularity, there is a paradigm shift from humanism to the concern of the nonhuman. The chapter examines Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil's visions of the Singularity with reference to the WWW Trilogy and other singularity science fiction works which portray possible worlds of symbiosis, coexistence, and coevolution. Last but not least, Chapter Four focuses on the Anthropocene and science fiction to illustrate the coevolution of human and nonhuman in relation to the environment and climate change with discussions on Paul Di Filippo's short story "Life in the Anthropocene" and Kim Stanley Robinson's science fictions New York 2140 and 2312. By examining the development of posthuman discourses, concepts of the singularity and the Anthropocene along the creative narratives of posthuman science fiction, this dissertation aims to affirm science fiction's role in exploring the posthuman condition and reimagining our future. It also puts science and humanities together in developing new perspectives and ethics for the world we are in.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The problem of the dissertation is to formulate the relationship of John Colet (1467? -1519), Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, to the resurgent study of "humane letters" in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. More specifically, the purpose is to indicate what Colet thought humanism to be, what in it appealed to him, and how much of it he took for his own. Further, it is hoped that it may have a more general value in suggesting some of the reasons humanism held the interest it did in ecclesiastical and theological circles, and some of the results to which the pursuit of that interest led. The method of the dissertation is descriptive and historical. The plan of the dissertation is first to discover the kind of humanism which Colet actually encountered in England, France, and Italy--what it was saying and doing, the audience to which it was addressed, and the motives which directed it. Thus a wide variety of contemporary writings and of analytical studies in the Renaissance in general and in humanism in particular are used. Second, the study asks what Colet himself really understood the new "humane letters" to be, what the nature of their appeal was -- personally and ecclesiastically. This latter step has demanded that the bulk of the work be done in Colet's own writings and in other relevant primary sources. Out of the first part of the study the thesis emerges that Renaissance humanism was primarily a literary and linguistic phenomenon, not a philosophical, nor even an aesthetic one. Humanists were craftsmen above all else, skilled in the arts of letter and document composition, who found employment chiefly as personal or municipal secretaries, diplomats, and teachers of the skills basic to their work--grammar, rhetoric, "poetry," and somewhat later, history and moral philosophy. Classical literature and style were increasingly seen to furnish nearly unlimited resources and actual models for the development of these skills. The characteristics of this humanism are then used as the criteria of comparison by which Colet is examined. In exploring the significance of Colet's academic program, both at Oxford and on the continent, we discover that he exhibited a rather definite order in the importance he attributed to his various studies: Christian teaching, humanistic techniques of criticism, platonic studies. Further, his Latin style and even his handwriting suggest that among the current academic schools and fads, it was the humanists with whom he wished to be identified. More revealing than these inferences is the assortment of writers he used in his own studies. They were not the great figures of the previous three or four centuries, but the "poets" of the classical world, especially of Rome, and of the early Church--the latter were significantly viewed not simply as the Church Fathers, but as the "Christian classics." Indeed, for Colet it was only after one had received the teaching of the Scriptures and these Christian classics that he could make proper use of the pagan classics. This seems clearly to reinforce the order of preference already noted in connection with his academic career. It was also the reason why Colet was so careful in defining the ancient authors who should be read by the 153 scholars in his St. Paul's School. Though Colet is often not entirely successful in maintaining this order in his use of the two "classics," both his attempt to do so and the particular historical-textual approach he made to much of the ancient literature--Scriptural, patristic, and pagan classical--all tend to justify the label "Christian humanist" which has been applied to him. / 2999-01-01

The last comprehensive biography on Francesco Filelfo was written well over one hundred and fifty years ago. Since then the general state of knowledge about this humanist has been largely conditioned by G. Voigt's hostile assessment and G. Bendaucci's unsystematic and unreliable studies. Monographs on Filelfo's stay at Florence and Siena have been provided by G. Zippel and L. de Feo Corso, but the chief period in Filelfo's life, i.e. Filelfo at the court of Milan, has so far not been studied in adequate depth. E. Garin's recent account of Filelfo at Milan does not open up any new vistas. Yet Milan was the city where Filelfo spent half his life, where he wrote almost all his works and where he left a deep imprint in the development of humanistic culture. This thesis is therefore intended to fill this gap. The recent publication of P.O. Kristeller's 'Iter Italicum' made it possible to base such a reappraisal on an extensive survey of Filelfo manuscripts in Italian libraries. Almost all the existing Filelfo manuscripts at Rome, Florence, Milan, Pisa, Lucca, Bergamo, Venice, Munich, Oxford, Holkham Hall and London have been examined for this thesis. All unpublished material found there had to be copied and editions had to be prepared. Only Vienna, Paris and Wolfenbüttel seem to hold still unknown works. Particularly in the archives of Florence and Milan a large amount of entirely new material has been discovered which is being edited for the first time in the appendix of this thesis. It throws a significant light on Filelfo's social and economic situation. It allows us to penetrate the curtain of rhetorical declamations of Filelfo's letters and to understand the economic and cultural reality that lay behind them. Another purpose of this thesis consisted in the compilation of a bibliography in which all the various publications on Filelfo since about 1870 are listed, for they are scattered in periodicals and sometimes difficult to trace. [Continued in text ...]