The Projected and Prophetic: Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace, and Science Fiction

Book excerpt: This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2011. The papers collected in this volume document the exchange and development of ideas that comprised the 5th Global Conference on Visions of Humanity in Cyberculture, Cyberspace, and Science Fiction, hosted at Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom, in July 2010. As in the past, the conference was driven by questions related to how cyberculture, cyberspace and science fiction can provide new insights into the nature of what it is to be human and the understanding of what it means for human beings to live in communities. In addition to these recurring themes, there is just as importantly a disposition that is shared by those participating in this volume. The authors, as well the writers, thinkers, and filmmakers they consider in their essays, demonstrate an intrepid and inquisitive approach that tests age-old questions within the rapidly expanding, but still vaguely defined spaces that new technologies have afforded us. Moreover, in many ways, the conference and present volume reflect their subject, which has always been situated self-consciously and comfortably between the receding boundaries that have traditionally served both to delineate various academic disciplines and to distinguish real scholarship from popular discourse. Thus, as evidenced in the chapters of this volume, the conference benefited from the participation of delegates who represented a variety of fields, methodologies, and perspectives.