数字时代的肉身之思:论《冲破黑暗》中的批判性后人文主义思想

The Human Body in the Digital Age:Critical Posthumanism in Plowing the Dark

美国作家理查德·鲍尔斯的小说兼具科幻小说的恣意想象与深刻的社会关怀。在小说《冲破黑暗》中,鲍尔斯试图回答在技术日益介入人类生活的时代,人类如何界定自身、重构与技术的关系及回应永生的诱惑等一系列问题;在现代性神话和技术必胜信念的潮流中,他逆流而上,重新思考人与自我、科技和物质世界之间的关系。本文从小说所呈现的身体为切入点,借助后人文主义、控制论等相关理论,发掘鲍尔斯对人文主义的批判与反思。鲍尔斯强调以技术介入身体形成的赛博格形象解构人类本体论边界及自由人文主义主体,并积极建构身体、心灵与物质世界和谐共处的后人类世界。

Richard Powers's novels are characterized by aesthetically scientific wonder and soberly realistic concerns.In Plowing the Dark,Powers aims to answer such questions as how humans define themselves,how they reconstruct their relationship with technology,and how they respond to the temptation of immortality in the posthuman era marked by the increasing saturation of human life by technology.Against the myth of modernity and technological triumphalism,Powers reworks human beings'relationships with themselves,with technology,and with the material world.Focusing on different bodies delineated in this novel,this paper draws upon theories of posthumanism and cybernetics to expound Powers's reflections on humanism.With emphasis on the embodied posthuman,Powers refuses to view the posthuman as an immortal being isolated from the body.By depicting the cyborg body,he deconstructs the ontological boundary between human beings and the liberal humanist notion of the subject,and constructs a posthuman world marked by the harmonious coexistence of body,mind,and the physical world.