<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>The present essay seeks to analyze Scottish science fiction writer Ken MacLeod’s <italic>The Corporation Wars</italic> trilogy (2016-2017) as an amalgam of politico-philosophical ideas set against the background of posthumanism. MacLeod’s far-future posthuman world-building relies on the conventional tropes of science fiction (man-machine hybrids, brain uploading, digital resurrection, and the agency of sentient machines) to engage with pressing ideologies (the master-slave dialectics, the historical perpetuation of age-old conflict between progressive and reactionary forces, the ethics of machinic consciousness). MacLeod’s novels project a postbinarist worldview where outmoded binary oppositions between life and death, the real and the virtual, the human and the machinic are constantly abolished, but which still preserves persistent ideological divisions.</p>
</abstract>

The present essay seeks to analyze Scottish science fiction writer Ken MacLeod’s The Corporation Wars trilogy (2016-2017) as an amalgam of politico-philosophical ideas set against the background of posthumanism. MacLeod’s far-future posthuman world-building relies on the conventional tropes of science fiction (man-machine hybrids, brain uploading, digital resurrection, and the agency of sentient machines) to engage with pressing ideologies (the master-slave dialectics, the historical perpetuation of age-old conflict between progressive and reactionary forces, the ethics of machinic consciousness). MacLeod’s novels project a postbinarist worldview where outmoded binary oppositions between life and death, the real and the virtual, the human and the machinic are constantly abolished, but which still preserves persistent ideological divisions.

The Battle Within and the Battle Without: The Posthuman Worldview of Ken MacLeod’s <italic>The Corporation Wars</italic> Trilogy

American, British and Canadian Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Battle Within and the Battle Without: The Posthuman Worldview of Ken MacLeod’s  Trilogy

The present essay seeks to analyze Scottish science fiction writer Ken MacLeod’s The Corporation Wars trilogy (2016-2017) as an amalgam of...

The Battle Within and the Battle Without: The Posthuman Worldview of Ken MacLeod’s The Corporation Wars Trilogy

Article Category: Artikel

Published Online: Dec 30, 2021

Page range: 85 - 104

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/abcsj-2021-0019

Keywords
contemporary Scottish science fiction, posthumanism, simulation, machinic awareness, ideology, political science fiction

© 2021 INDRAJIT PATRA, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The Battle Within and the Battle Without: The Posthuman Worldview of Ken MacLeod’s The Corporation Wars Trilogy

Article Category: Artikel

Published Online: Dec 30, 2021

Page range: 85 - 104

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/abcsj-2021-0019

Keywordscontemporary Scottish science fiction, posthumanism, simulation, machinic awareness, ideology, political science fiction

© 2021 INDRAJIT PATRA, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
contemporary Scottish science fiction, posthumanism, simulation, machinic awareness, ideology, political science fiction