Week 4 – Is Cyberpunk dead?
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:38
This week’s course asks whether or not cyberpunk has outgrown itself, and surpassed the realities imagined by some of the founders of the genre. Is it still relevant in the tech-saturated world in which we live? Have the warnings that were sounded by Gibson, Stephenson and Sterling become a reality? Is the technological reality in cyberpunk even that important, given how concerned the films and novels are with questions of truth, memory and reality? Much of the work read and discussed asks the question: What does it mean to be Human? Does this mean cyberpunk has a continued relevance as a genre?
With these questions, your reading and the discussions we have had over the past 3 weeks as a guide, write a short (+/-2 page, complete with links and references) paper on how you see cyberpunk’s relevance as a genre, the debate on whether or not cyberpunk can be said to be ‘dead” and the epistemological issues it raises. There are a great deal of resources online on this topic, so feel free to use any of them, as long as you refer back.
If you could upload your piece as a blog post by the end of the day on Monday 6th of October. That gives everyone the whole of Tuesday 7th to read, and then we can have our discussion on Wednesday 8th. Please tag your work as Week 4, Is Punk Dead and any other tags you think are appropriate.
Additional Resources:
These are just a starting point, but you may find them useful.
Cyberpunk RIP – an article by Paul Saffo in WIRED mag circa the early 1990s.
The Four Eras of Cyberpunk – article by Mr Roboto which defines the current era as “post-Matrix”
Pic by Enric Martinex on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0
Tags: Coursework, Is Punk Dead?, Week4