Humanistic Reflections
Cross-Cultural Approaches to Proto-Cyberpunk Texts in Doblin, Brocka, and Tsai
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Joseph Garza Medina
Cyberpunk is a well-established subgenre of science fiction, but what about its predecessors? This study seeks to define proto-cyberpunk as a type of literature that exists both within and outside of science fiction, delineated by cyberpunk's typical concerns with rapid technologization, capitalist inequality, urban crime and decay, and sexual and gender experimentation. In particular, it focuses on German author Alfred Doblin's 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, three films by the Filipino director Lino Brocka, and the early works of Taiwanese director Ming-liang Tsai. These texts are analyzed for their cyberpunk-adjacent qualities, including those related to their political milieu, as part of a broader effort to understand how cyberpunk literature transcends the bounds of traditionally accepted works like William Gibson's novel Neuromancer and the Wachowski sisters' Matrix films. Particular attention is paid to the gendered and sexual elements of these texts and how they relate to concerns with gender and sexuality that are intrinsic to the cyberpunk genre.
Featured The Effects of Patriarchy on Familial Connections in Nuclear Family
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Xailea Anderson Iopa
This research paper analyzes the novel Nuclear Family by Joseph Han from a feminist critical lens. One of the largest themes in Nuclear Family is that of division, which this paper expands upon by highlighting the ways in which patriarchal influence has created division throughout the family. Throughout the novel, there are numerous examples of the patriarchal effects on a multitude of characters, from expected gender roles to the expectations placed on each individual due to their position within the family. Incorporating the impact of patriarchy on both the male and female characters, this paper demonstrates the complexity of the influence of patriarchy on people across the gender spectrum. Also of importance to this essay are the effects of immigration in changing and reinforcing gender roles, shown through the immigration of the main and side characters from their home countries to Hawaiʻi. Through a feminist interpretation of Joseph Han’s novel, the influence of patriarchy on families and how it negatively affects their ability to connect, as well as how immigration and the decentralization of the nuclear family shifts patriarchal expectations becomes apparent. Through this analysis, another layer of complexity is added to Nuclear Family’s portrayal of an immigrant family in Hawaiʻi.
A Transatlantic View of America from Baudrillard and Todorov
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Matthew Motyka
European intellectuals' relationship to American culture is characterized by a complex interplay of fascination and rejection. Two prominent thinkers, Jean Baudrillard and Tzvetan Todorov, offer insights into this dynamic. Having spent time in the United States, primarily in academic settings, they have documented their observations. Baudrillard's book, America, delineates an insurmountable chasm between European and American cultures, positing that these two entities remain disparate in their affective and intellectual dimensions. Todorov, in his work L'homme dépaysé [A Man without a Homeland], offers his impressions of America, centering on the disconnection between intellectual life and urban life. He argues that American intellectual life is centered around university campuses away from the life of the city and focuses on methodologies without addressing the fundamental question of culture's social purpose. In this paper, I contend that America and Europe function on two separate cultural registers, a conclusion that can be substantiated by a close reading of the writings of these intellectuals and my own expatriate experience. America, I argue, is an uprooted reality, a utopia realized in a literal and cultural desert.
