CC BY
99
O.Yu. Antsyferova (Saint-Petersburg) ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1219-0134
PROBLEMATIZING HUMANNES, ANTICIPATING
POSTHUMANSIM: PHILIP K. DICK'S "DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?"
Abstract. Written in 1968, the sci-fi novel by the American author Philip K. Dick "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" still retains the interest of the wide reading audience. The paper aims at elaborating upon the reasons for this lasting public enthusiasm which is claimed to relate not only to extremely successful film-versions of the book, but, even more so, to the highly topical message of the novel. In his antiutopian text, Philip K. Dick manages to put into focus the whole range of issues curraently associated with posthumanism. These are environmental problems caused by human activities, interplanet colonization escalating the conflicts of inclusion / exclusion, human / animal relations overlapping with the hybridization of natural and artificial, critical problems of future technological posthumanism manifesting themselves in highly problematic distinction between the humans and androids and in questioning the onto-ethical status of the humans. Philip K. Dick explores philosophical and social underpinnings of the catastrophic future which lies in wait for humanity and seems to strongly adhere to such humanistic values as empathy (the main touchstone to differentiate between humans and androids), self-reflection (the predominant feature of the protagonist Rick Deckard), search for identity and for meaning as the principal vectors of the human life, mercy for the mentally handicapped. Philip K. Dick's book can be viewed as one of the earliest caveats of the emerging trend to reconsider humanness in the socio-cultural context of rapidly developing technology, various environmental threats, all kinds of hybridization and their ethical repercussions - and as such can be seen as truly prognostic, the most valuable part of it to be found in its ethical and social awareness and highly conscious refusal to suggest any final answer: essentially, the titled question seems eristically unanswerable.
Key words: Philip K. Dick; (post)humanism; humanness; anti-utopia; historicism; ideology; empathy.
О.Ю. Анцыферова (Санкт-Петербург) ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1219-0134
Предвосхищая постгуманизм, проблематизируя гуманизм: роман Филипа К. Дика «Мечтают ли андроиды об электроовцах?»
Аннотация. Написанный в 1968 г. роман знаменитого американского фантаста Филипа К. Дика со временем становится все более актуальным, о чем свидетельствует и многочисленные переиздания романа, и зрительский успех его киноверсии «Бегущий по лезвию» и ее сиквела, и внушительное число посвященных ему
исследований. Статья ставит целью проанализировать причины непреходящей актуальности этого текста; они связываются прежде всего с выдающимся прогностическим даром писателя, предвосхитившим постгуманистическую проблематику, которая оказалась в фокусе широкой теоретической рефлексии уже после кончины писателя (см. работы Р. Брайдотти и др.). Не менее важным оказывается глубоко своеобычное переосмысление классического гуманизма и традиционных представлений о человеке и субъективности. В своей антиутопии Филип К. Дик поднимает проблемы экологических катастроф, межпланетных путешествий с последующей колонизацией территорий, все виды природно-технологических гибридизаций и их этические последствия. При этом писатель сохраняет определенную историчность, свойственную постгуманистической мысли, и обостренное внимание к вопросам идеологии. Автор исследует философские, социальные и биологические измерения своей футуристической антиутопии и размышляет о возможности для человека сохранить человечность, связывая ее с ключевым понятием эмпатии, со способностью к самоанализу, с поиском самого себя и смысла как основным вектором человеческого существования, со способностью к мечте и состраданию. Проблематизация гуманизма, в сущности, не приводит писателя к нигилизму и мизантропии: авторская этическая позиция выражается в выборе героев, в стратегиях сюжетосложения, в отказе от однозначных оценок и сознательном уходе от окончательных ответов, что находит выражение и в заглавном вопросе книги, принципиально не имеющем ответа.
Ключевые слова: Филип К. Дик; (пост)гуманизм; человечность; антиутопия; историзм; идеология; эмпатия.
With today's enormous popularity of Philip K. Dick's works and their extremely successful film-versions and spin-offs, with proliferation of criticism about the author who is now included into the American literary canon, we may say that Philip K. Dick surely has got a cult reputation today. Not in the least ironically, did late Ursula Le Guin call him in her article "Science Fiction as Prophesy" (1976) "our own homegrown Borges" [qtd. in: Vest 2009, 53].
It is not surprising then that one of the most persistent topics of discussion about Dick is exactly what makes him so resonant with our contemporary predicaments. Much has been said about his prophetic power, about his almost accurate predictions: nuclear meltdown in the Soviet Union by 1985 (Chernobyl blew up in 1986); artificial life by 1993 (Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997). Even if we remain at the quotidian level, we find the writer prognostic. Thus, Nora Young points out: "It's easy to see why these [Dick's] scenarios are so resonant for us. We live in an era of increasingly intrusive technologies that shape who we are and how we behave. In our surveillance society, our actions are monitored, IDs and passwords are checked. New drugs aim to tweak mood, focus and memory. At a more everyday level, commonplace cosmetic surgery means that many people are literally not who they appear to be. Many of us create multiple, disembodied versions of ourselves that live online in virtual worlds" [Young 2007, 13].
In broader philosophical terms, it may be stated that Dick in his futuristic
visions presaged the complex of ideas associated today with posthumanism. And, it is especially true about the sci-fi novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (1968). When looking back at the history of the term "posthumanism", it is usually stated that the terms "posthuman" and "posthumanism" first appeared in Ihab Habib Hassan, "Prometheus as Performer: Toward a Posthumanist Culture?" in 1977. According to a more recent research, though, as early as in 1943 C. S. Lewis in his book "Abolition of Man" asserted that if there ever comes a time when humans will be treated as "conditioned material", then a world of post-humanity would ensue"[McInnes 2018].
Theorizing posthumanism Rosi Braidotti aptly remarks, "Discourses and representations of the non-human, the inhuman, the anti-human, the inhumane and the posthuman proliferate and overlap in our globalized, technologically mediated societies" [Braidotti 2013, 2). In her book written in 2013 the philosopher delineates three possible post-anthropocentric scenarios of subjectivity transformation vital for today's reading of Philip K. Dick: (1) becoming-animal, which implies a drastic restructuring of humans' relation to animal; (2) becoming-earth ("the change of location of humans from mere biological to geological agents calls for recompositions of both subjectivity and community" (Braidotti 2013, 83) and (3) becoming-machine.
"Thus, the becoming-animal axis of transformation entails the displacement of an-thropocentrism and the recognition of trans species solidarity on the basis of our being environmentally based <...>. The planetary or becoming-earth dimension brings issues of environmental and social sustainability to the fore, with special emphasis on ecology and the climate change issue. The becoming-machine axis cracks open the division between humans and technological circuits, introducing bio-technologically mediated relations as foundational for the constitution the subject" [Braidotti 2013, 66-67).
This three-fold division is already envisaged and heralded in Dick's novel, where he raises the cluster of such interrelated problems as
1) influence of high technologies upon mankind and their double-edge influence manifesting itself in highly problematic distinction between the humans and androids and in questioning the onto-ethical status of the humans;
2) environmental problems caused by human activities (devastating consequences of World War Terminus);
3) human/animal relations overlapping with the hybridization of natural and artificial.
These three problem clusters evidently coincide with three trends delineated by Braidotti.
Just as important for Dick are highly topical problems of:
4) interplanet colonization escalating the conflicts of inclusion/exclusion, the problem of otherness and ways of dealing with it;
5) reconsideration of the role of religion and mythmaking.
The last two have much to do with historicity and ideological message of the novel.
This complex of problems makes our today's return to Dick's book highly topical. Back in late 1960s Dick seemed to be aware of the pending crucial re-evaluations of what a human being is, of what it means to be human and humane. He seems to be tormented by "an unanswerable conundrum. As robots evolve, at what stage do they become human? And as our lives become more and more computerised, at what stage do we start to become machines?" [Cook 2015].
As we know, among main vectors of reconsidering humanism today, two seem more influential - transhumanism and posthumanism. Both philosophical approaches fundamentally question the concept of "human being through engagement and interaction with technology. "Transhumanism is considered a 'more or less coherent' set of techno-optimist ideas, <which appeared as> an intensification of Enlightenment humanist thought, guided by a belief in reason, individualism, science, progress, as well as self-perfection or cultivation" [Mac-Farlane 2014, 52]. In a sense, Dick's androids could have been viewed symptomatic of transhumanism, as these technological wonders surely demonstrate incredible progress of science and astonishing intellectual powers of their creators. As for posthumanism, it demarcates principal break with humanism, with its basic values and concepts. As Braidotti puts it, "The posthuman provokes elation but also anxiety <...> about the possibility of a serious de-centring of 'Man', the former measure of all things" [Braidotti 2013, 2). If transahumanism continues the Enlightenment humanist tradition which viewed human nature as universal and a-temporary, "posthumanists have tended to be motivated by a desire to create significant distance from the seemingly unjust anthropocentric privileging, exclusionary politics and violent subjugation of nonhuman others historically proliferated under the name of humanism" [MacFarlane 2014, 53]. Posthumanism is all about "dismantling of strict dualisms and boundaries, such as the one between human and nonhuman animals, biological organisms and machines, the physical and the nonphysical realm; and ultimately, the boundary between technology and the self' [Ferrando 2013, 28-29]. Scholars do foreground a certain historicity of posthumanism. The argument of Francesca Ferrando is highly pertinent here: "Posthumanism keeps a critical and deconstruc-tive standpoint informed by the acknowledgement of the past, while setting a comprehensive and generative perspective to sustain and nurture alternatives for the present and for the futures" [Ferrando 2013, 32].
My argument is that Philip K. Dick was a posthumanist before the term was coined, and this fact accounts for his enormous popularity today.
He surely was historically and sociogically conscious in his anti-utopias, and not only while authoring his alternative history novel "The Man in the High Castle" (1962) but in Androids as well. To prove that we may recall explicit parallels between androids and slaves. The post-apocalyptic text of Dick is set after the nuclear catastrophe - World War Terminus - when the earth is no longer suitable for normal life, and the major part of population moved to the colonized Mars. Characteristically, from the novel we learn nothing about what life on Mars is like and in what degree it is utopically wonderful; evidently, it is of
no concern for the author. The whole book is about how the humans survive on their own planet. About colonies we only learn that the earthlings were enticed to leave their planet by providing them with androids - humanoid robots who can perform free labor: androids "had become the mobile donkey engine of the colonization program <.. .> That had been the ultimate incentive of emigration: the android servant as carrot, the radioactive fall out as stick" [Dick 2001, 15]. Earth (namely, the LA area of the US) is populated by those who do not have enough money for space travel or by "specials" who are not considered eligible for emigration due to their poor intellectual state. In other words, the Earth became an area for "orphans and cripples" so to say, to whom Kingdom of Heaven should belong, but Dick's characters are doomed to living where nuclear dust made stars invisible and under imminent threat of "kipplization". (The word "kipple" coined by Philip K. Dick, refers to the apocalyptic type of rubbish which tends to build up without human intervention. Eventually, one day, the entire world will have moved to a state of kipplization, that is to complete dehumanized chaos). So, in a very broad sense, the characters are doomed. However, in the fictional world of Dick they are certainly privileged to be the main objects of his post-apocalyptic narrative, while those lucky enough to emigrate to colonies deserve only the figure of silencing - they are ignored and considered of no interest. So, the main point of interest for Philip K. Dick is not how far the humanity will progress in colonizing interplanet space, but what will happen to those remaining on Earth (the same is true about many other Dick's texts, The Man in the High Castle, for one).
The part androids play in the life of earthlings is strictly determined by the law - illegally coming from Mars, they are persecuted and condemned to retirement (abolishment) - just like fugitive slaves in the US history. In some respects, the narrative about androids very strongly reminds of the former slavery discourse: "Don't you know, Deckard that in the colonies they have androids mistresses?" [Dick 2001, p.123], - a colleague bounty-hunter asks the protagonist clearly referring to the type of relations so typical of the antebellum US society. To a certain degree, the novel about androids' tresspasing on Earth can be viewed a passing narrative. Just like light-skinned Afro-Americans who wanted to pass for whites in the slaveowners' state, the whole point of androids' existence on earth and the only prerequisite of their safety is their passing for humans. It can also be considered a case of mimicry which clearly relates Dick's novel to the postcolonial theory and postcolonial hybridized subject.
Another historically determined issue in the system of values critically reconsidered by Dick in the novel is ideology. For Dick, an important quality of a real human is freedom from ideology, his "willingness to defy the programming that will reduce him to an ideological automaton" [Gillis 1998, 270]. In his essay "The Android and the Human", referring to the hero of his last novel The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (1982) who challenged the habitual views of Christianity origins, Philip K. Dick wrote of such non-conformists: "Their energy doesn't come from a pace-maker; it comes from a stubborn, almost absurdly perverse refusal to be 'shucked'; that is to be taken in by slogans, the
ideology - in fact by any and all ideology itself, of whatever sort - that would reduce them to instruments of abstract causes, however, 'good'" [qtd. in Gillis 1998, 270]. The writer was constantly reflecting on the human in terms of ideology. For example, speaking about the atrocities committed by the Nazis, he said that they can be only a fruit of a "defective" mind-set, reflecting a pattern of the group ideology. "I realized that, with the Nazis, what we were essentially dealing with was a defective group mind, a mind so emotionally defective that the word 'human' could not be applied to them" [Sammon 1996, 16], - Dick said in one of his interviews.
In Androids the bounty hunters are professionally defending the official ideology; thus the protagonist enanciates: "You and I, all the bounty hunters - we stand between the Nexus-6 and mankind, a barrier which keeps the two distinct" [Dick 2001, 121], which clearly reminds of racist ideology of purity of blood. Subjugating oneself to ideology for Dick's protagonist leads to identity destruction. While comparing his sufferings to those of Mercer's endless Sisyphean labors, Rick Deckard has to confess to himself: "My god; there is something worse about my situation than his. Mercer doesn't have to do anything alien to him. He suffers but at least he isn't required to violate his own identity" [Dick 2001, 152]. So, the official ideology of strict and unsurpassable dividing line between humans and adroids (between humans and machines) is reconsidered and deconstructed in the novel.
Highlighting historic overtones in Philip K. Dick's novel, I do not intend to limit it to historicity, the writer's message being more universal and philosophical. When asked on his grand theme, the writer worded it like this: "Who is human and who only appears (masquerades) as human?" [Qtd in: Calvin 2007, 357]. Rosi Braidotti's statement about the principal posthuman predicament seems extremely pertinent to Dick's sci-fi world: "The relationship between the human and the technological other has shifted in the contemporary context, to reach unprecedented degrees of intimacy and intrusion. The posthuman predicament is such as to force a displacement of the lines of demarcation between structural differences, or ontological categories, for instance between the organic and the inorganic, the born and the manufactured, flesh and metal, electronic circuits and organic nervous systems" [Braidotti 2013, 89]. While discussing posthumanist scenario of "the becoming-animal axis of transformation" R. Braidotti gives the example of Dolly the sheep whom she views as "the ideal figuration for the complex bio-mediated temporalities and forms of intimacy that represent the new post-anthropocentric human-animal interaction" [Braidotti 2013, 74]. Distinctively, Braidotti's argument entails the allusion to Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: Dolly the sheep is proclaimed "the first specimen of a new species: the electronic sheep that Philip K. Dick dreamed of, the forerunner of the androids society of Blade Runner (1982)" [Braidotti 2013, 74]. Probably appropriate from the philosophical perspective, the allusion strikes us as inaccurate from the point of view of any Dick's attentive reader. First, even the proprietor of the above mentioned artificial animal Rick Deckard never dreamed of the electric sheep, to say nothing
about his creator, Philip K. Dick. What the protagonist dreamed of, was a real animal which was too expensive even for a bounty hunter. Secondly, Dick never authored Blade Runner (1982). Third, he never featured androids'society. All these minor inaccuracies only speak for an oversimplified take on of Dick's sci-fi world resulting from its enormous popularity.
In Dick's novel artificial animals play multifarious functions. In the devastated world animals obtain a status of nostalgic fetish reminding of the things passed. Besides, the unequivocally class (late-capitalist?) society makes real animals a token of an economic status, of a certain social prestige. "The animals exist as commodities rather than as beings for the humans in <Dick's> world" [Vint 2007, 116]. So, the hierarchy of man/animal is economically reversed in Dick's anti-utopian world despoiled by human's activities.
Natural life takes revenge on the humans in the novel. The protagonist Rick Deckard alternately owns three living beings: first, the eponymous electric sheep, later, after retirement of three androids, he was able to buy a real Nubian black goat, which eventually became a real scapegoat when the female android Rachael throws her from the roof to revenge Rick for killing her friends-androids. Last comes the toad - Rick found it in the desert at a crucial moment of epiphany, after he experienced complete fusion with Mercer (the godlike figure of the novel). First, the toad seems a sort of compensation for the lost Nubian goat. However, the toad turns out to be just a mechanical gadget. By the end of the book Rick has covered such a considerable distance of self-scritinizing, self-analysis, analysis of relation between self-identity and identities of the others populating the world (androids and scarce non-human biospecies) that he learns to appreciate and embrace this otherness and comes to the conclusion in connection with the toad and, by extension, with the world at large: "The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as their lives are" [Dick 2001, 208], demonstrating tolerance and inclusiveness.
It can be stated that in Dick's fictional society empathy is officially considered the main borderline between humans and technological non-humans, i.e. androids. The Voigt-Kampff test defines the capability for empathy by measuring reactions of the tested subject to information about exposing of living beings to pain. Anyhow, it turns out to be more than relative. "Although vivisection is now conducted with more care regarding the animals' suffering, it is worth noting that most of Dick's audience would fail the Voigt-Kampff test. Its questions - about topics such as boiling live lobster, eating meat, or using fur -denote things that are commonplace rather than shocking in our world" [Vint 2007, 115]. Reflecting on new Nexus-6 Android types and the possibility for them to be discovered by means of the V-K test, Rick admits to himself that the latest brand of Androids "surpassed several classes of human species in terms of intelligence. In other words, androids equipped with the new Nexus-6 brain unit had from a sort of rough, pragmatic, no-nonsense standpoint evolved beyond a major - but inferior - segment of mankind" [Dick 2001, 27]. Some comparisons Rick makes are not in favor of automatons: "Most androids I've known have more vitality and desire to live than my wife. She has nothing to give me" [Dick
2011, 81]. Somewhere in the middle of the novel the protagonist bounty hunter starts to be ambiguous about clear-cut distinctions: "Do you think androids have souls?" [Dick 2001, 116], he inquires, and this existential doubt seems the crucial symptom of awakening of his humaneness / humanity. Rick becomes aware of the complexity of his task (retirement of androids) and, by extension, of the complexity of the life in general.
R. Calvin is right concluding that for Philip K. Dick "the authentic human being is characterized by autonomy, variability and, above all, empathy for life - all life" [Calvin 2007, 358]. This emphasis on empathy can be closely related to the period Dick lived and worked - a period of advanced capitalism and corporatization, a period that produced a vast, active alienation of human beings from one another.
Dick is very sober and pessimistic about the future of humanity predicting future suffering from nuclear catastrophe and from enhancement of technology In this sense he features a distinctly posthumanist picture. But as an artist, as a demiurge of his fictional world he remains expressively humane, i.e. having or showing compassion or benevolence - or empathy. R. Vikovic reminds us that "the word "empathy" is derived from the Greek words en meaning "inside" and pathos meaning "suffering, feeling or emotion." To empathize with something or someone is literally to be "inside their suffering." [Viskovic 2013, 171]. This is exactly the position of the author in his postapocaliptic narrative - inside the suffering characters. Dick's overall humanness manifests itself in the array of his heroes. In his choice of heroes: he seems to be mostly interested in crippled, but capable of empathy, like Isidore.
The author is also interested in dreamers. Thus, the concept of dream seems to be of crucial importance for Rick and his newly formed identity. "Do androids dream? Rick asked himself. Evidently; that's why they occasionally kill their employees and flee here. A better life without servitude" [Dick 2001, 157]. The author is one with those who dream of overcoming loneliness (Isidore), of overcoming himself (Rick Deckard), who is capable of self-analysis and, consequently, of facing moral dilemmas.
In the hopeless setting, among his second-rate, underprivileged characters Philip K. Dick foregrounds undeniable elements of humaneness - sprouts or remnants of humaneness? Difficult to say. As it is next to impossible to give an answer the title question of the book: Do androids dream of electric sheep? Nobody knows - none of the readers is an android. None of the android character of the book speaks to that matter. But capability of dreaming, of striving to something seems to be a key concept for the author. To deny easy interpretations is one of the primary Dick's strategies. Anyway, humanness is still there, in the expressly posthumanist world.
REFERENCES (RUSSIAN)
1. Braidotti R. The Posthuman. Cambridge, 2013.
2. Calvin R. The French Dick: Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Philip K. Dick, and the An-
droid // Extrapolation. 2007. Vol. 48. № 2, Summer. P. 340-363.
3. Cook W. How Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic, Blade Runner, foresaw the way we live today // The Spectator. London, 2015. Mar 7. URL: https://www.spectator. co.uy2015/03/how-ridley-scotts-sci-fi-classic-blade-mnner-foresaw-the-way-we-live-today/ (accessed 18.05.2018).
4. Dick P.D. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? London, 2001.
5. Ferrando F. Posthumanism, Transhumanism, Antihumanism, Metahumanism, and New Materialisms: Differences and Relations // Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts. 2013. Vol. 8. № 2, Fall. P. 26-32.
6. Gillis R. Dick on the human: From wubs to bounty hunters to bishops // Extrapolation. 1998. Vol. 39. № 3, Fall. P. 264-271.
7. Greenblatt J. "More Human Than Human": "Flattening of Affect," Synthetic Humans, and then Social Construction of Maleness // English Studies in Canada. 2016. Vol. 42. Issues 1-2. March/June. P. 41-63.
8. MacFarlan J. M. Boundary Work: Post- and Transhumanism, Part I (Rev.: Postand Transhumanism: An Introduction / Ed. by Robert Ranisch and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2014. 313 pp.) // Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective. 2014. Vol. 4. № 1. P. 52-56.
9. McInnes G. The Posthuman Vision of Philip K. Dick in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (to be published in 2018).
10. Sammon P. M. Future Noir: The Making of "Blade Runner". New York, 1996.
11. Vest J.P. The Postmodern Humanism of Philip K. Dick. Lanham, Maryland; Toronto; Plymouth, UK, 2009.
12. Vint S. Speciesism and Species Being in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" // Mosaic. 2007. Vol. 40. № 16 March. P. 111-126.
13. Viskovic R. The Rise and Fall of Wilbur Mercer // Extrapolation. 2013. Vol. 54. № 2. P. 163-182.
14. Young N. Views of the future from a long-dead writer // The Globe and Mail. Toronto (Ont.) 2007, 21 April. P. 13.
REFERENCES (Articles from Scientific Journals)
1. Calvin R. The French Dick: Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Philip K. Dick, and the Android. Extrapolation, 2007, vol. 48, no. 2, Summer, pp. 340-363. (In English).
2. Ferrando F. Posthumanism, Transhumanism, Antihumanism, Metahumanism, and New Materialisms: Differences and Relations. Existenz: An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts, 2013, vol. 8, no. 2, Fall, pp. 26-32. (In English).
3. Gillis R. Dick on the human: From wubs to bounty hunters to bishops. Extrapolation,, 1998, vol. 39, no. 3, Fall, pp. 264-271. (In English).
4. Greenblatt J. "More Human Than Human": "Flattening of Affect," Synthetic Humans, and then Social Construction of Maleness. English Studies in Canada, 2016, vol. 42, issues 1-2, March/June, pp. 41-63. (In English).
5. MacFarlan J. M. Boundary Work: Post- and Transhumanism, Part 1 (Rev.: Postand Transhumanism: An Introduction. Ed. by Robert Ranisch and Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2014. 313 pp.). Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2014, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 52-56. (In English).
6. Vint S. Speciesism and Species Being in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". Mosaic, 2007, vol. 40, no. 1, March, pp. 111-126. (In English).
7. Viskovic R. The Rise and Fall of Wilbur Mercer. Extrapolation, 2013, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 163-182. (In English).
(Monographs)
8. Braidotti R. The Posthuman. Cambridge, 2013. (In English).
9. Sammon P.M. Future Noir: The Making of "Blade Runner". New York, 1996. (In English).
10. Vest J.P. The Postmodern Humanism of Philip K. Dick. Lanham, Maryland; Toronto; Plymouth, UK, 2009. (In English).
Olga Yu. Antsyferova, Saint-Petersburg University of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Doctor Hab. in Philology, Full Professor; Professor at the English Department. Research interests: American and English literature and culture, literary theory, culture studies.
E-mail: olga_antsyf@mail.ru
Анцыферова Ольга Юрьевна, Санкт-Петербургский Гуманитарный университет профсоюзов.
Доктор филологических наук, профессор; профессор кафедры английского языка. Научные интересы: американская и английская литература и культура, литературная теория, культурные исследования.
E-mail: olga_antsyf@mail.ru
