Beta
331302

The Cyborg Consciousness: Human Reality and Virtual Reality: A Close Reading of Karel Capek’s Play <i>R.U.R (Rossum’s Universal Robots) A Fantastic Melodrama and an Epilogue</i>

Article

Last updated: 26 Dec 2024

Subjects

-

Tags

-

Abstract

Garfield Benjamin in his book The Cyborg Subject: Reality, Consciousness, Parallax (2016) poses an important question regarding the issue of identity. He points out an intriguing relationship between cyborg consciousness and its relation to the human subject's consciousness. He suggests that there is a rivalry relationship between the human and the cyborg. The conflicting relationship or rivalry as he describes it is a result of the “irreducible gap" between physical and digital reality. Therefore, he focuses on “parallax" or the shift in perspectives as an important process that defines both the human and the cyborg's consciousness. This research paper is a close reading of R.U.R (Rossum's Universal Robots) A Fantastic Melodrama and an Epilogue by Karel Capek. The paper attempts through a theoretical framework to define cyborgian consciousness and its relation to the human consciousness. It triggers questions about the nature and the construction of the cyborgian consciousness with its three stages. The paper also sheds light on the definition of the cyborgian condition and the possibility of embracing a dystopian reality with a futuristic version of a cyborgian consciousness. Moreover, it examines the work of authors who analyze the cyborg condition and the representation of cyborgs both in popular culture and in contemporary theory. Those authors include (Benjamin Garfield 2016, Adam I Bostic 1992, Donna Haraway 2006). The theoretical framework focuses on the stages of constructing a cyborgian consciousness, the relationship between the play's main themes and the cyborgian condition as well as the power relations governing the relationship between humans and cyborgs. The research concludes that the cyborgian condition is not an either or one but is more of a complex state embracing contrasts in some cases and acknowledging diversity as well. It also finds out that the dystopic existence at the end of the play is not necessarily a negative state but could be considered as a different type of existence that has its own nature and condition.

DOI

10.21608/ttaip.2023.331302

Keywords

cyborg consciousness, Hybridity, oppositional politics, resistance, subaltern, affinity, Identity, Chimera, mestizaje

Authors

First Name

Maha

Last Name

Munib

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

The British University in Egypt.

Email

maha.munib@bue.edu.eg

City

-

Orcid

-

Volume

5

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

44866

Issue Date

2023-12-01

Receive Date

2023-05-16

Publish Date

2023-12-01

Page Start

33

Page End

45

Print ISSN

2636-4069

Online ISSN

2735-3451

Link

https://ttaip.journals.ekb.eg/article_331302.html

Detail API

https://ttaip.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=331302

Order

331,302

Type

Original Article

Type Code

1,357

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Textual Turnings: An International Peer-Reviewed Journal in English Studies

Publication Link

https://ttaip.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

The Cyborg Consciousness: Human Reality and Virtual Reality: A Close Reading of Karel Capek’s Play <i>R.U.R (Rossum’s Universal Robots) A Fantastic Melodrama and an Epilogue</i>

Details

Type

Article

Created At

26 Dec 2024