Remediated Readers: Gender and Literacy in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age.
With its emphasis on proper pedagogy and "young lady" programmers, Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age (1995) slyly subverts the conventions of earlier cyberpunk, which tends to focus on anti-establishment male heroes. These modifications, I argue, are a response to critics of the 1990s who see comput...
| Publicado en: | Science Fiction Studies Vol. 40; no. 3; pp. 480 - 496 |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Literary Criticism |
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University of California Press
Nov2013
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=91655623&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 91655623 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00917729 SFS jtl: Science Fiction Studies issn: 00917729 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Nov2013 vid: 40 iid: 3 pid: 414 pub: University of California Press artinfo: ui: 91655623 10.5621/sciefictstud.40.3.0480 ppf: 480 ppct: 16 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 237KB tig: atl: Remediated Readers: Gender and Literacy in Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. aug: au: McGinnis, Eileen su: Cyberpunk fiction Science fiction Male heroes Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, The (Book) Stephenson, Neal, 1959- sug: subj: Cyberpunk fiction Science fiction Male heroes Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, The (Book) Stephenson, Neal, 1959- ab: With its emphasis on proper pedagogy and "young lady" programmers, Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age (1995) slyly subverts the conventions of earlier cyberpunk, which tends to focus on anti-establishment male heroes. These modifications, I argue, are a response to critics of the 1990s who see computer culture as a threat to human subjectivity cultivated through the act of reading; instead, Stephenson asserts that learning to code can have the same cultural capital as learning to read. This paper explores the pervasive and sometimes troubling ways in which gendered and racialized bodies are used to stabilize this assertion. It begins by tracing how Nell's interaction with the Primer is an education into the values of her society, in contrast to the male loner working outside of or against the system. Further, I examine how Miranda's articulation of the Primer recalls nineteenth-century practices of reading instruction, which simultaneously elided the maternal reader and "naturalized" the act of reading. I also address the imagined community created when the Primer is distributed to an army of orphaned Chinese girls, showing how ideologies of reading can perpetuate inequalities and systems of power. Ultimately, by attempting to "domesticate" the computer, The Diamond Age spawns a more alienating vision of the printed book: as a machine embedded in prescriptive gender roles, imperialist agendas, and capitalist logics. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Literary Criticism src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Science Fiction Studies is the property of University of California Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Science Fiction Studies holder: University of California Press dt: @attributes: year: 2013 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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