Post-humanity

After two years of blood, sweat and anime, I've finished my senior thesis, "Establishing a Post-human Identity through Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell and Innocence Films." The paper is an incisive look into Mamoru Oshii's engagement with transhumanism, liberal humanism, and the role of non-humans (animals, objects, nature) in shaping social systems, through his Ghost in the Shell films.

On this page you'll find a link to the project, downloadable as a PDF. Also on this page are many of the short essays that served as foundations for the arguments in my senior thesis, based on a variety of anime that engage systems theories, traditional cyberpunk themes and humanist philosophies. Enjoy!


__________

Being Human


A simple question with myriad answers: what is humanity? Is human solidarity little more than ideological fluff that spits in the face of everyday conflicts and discrimination? And what can a little naked mole rat mutant teach us about ourselves?



__________

Perfect World

What is a system? What place do people have within systems? And can people escape the systems they find themselves part of? The answer to that, according to PSYCHO-PASS, is "no."






__________



The Chicken or the Egg?




Artificial life is the focus of many a cyberpunk tale; it assumes people have found a way to escape human limits by viewing our bodies - and eventually our consciousness - as manipulable code that may be replicated. Whether or not A.I. can even exist is a debate that's been waged since before most of us were born.




__________



Your Flesh is Irrelevant, Because it's the Data that Counts




Our present society holds information in high regard, perhaps unjustly so. Individuals often become a collection of numbers and statistics. PSYCHO-PASS tests the limits of this fixation by establishing a Crime Coefficient that gauges one's potential for criminal activity. If the number is high, the cops are authorized to apprehend these suspects even if no crime is being committed. The result? A lot of people end up dead. A LOT.




__________


MARDOCK SCRAMBLE: THE FIRST COMPRESSION, or "Cyborg Prostitute: The Anime Legacy of Molly Millions"





Titillating women and cyborg technology seem to go hand-in-hand in cyberpunk fiction. I take note of Mardock Scramble's Rune Ballot and her prostitute origins, comparing her  to other anime femme fatales and a certain Neuromancer's leading lady.
__________


THE ANIMATRIX: "WORLD RECORD"






A short essay on the idea of virtuality, and how "World Record" parallels the desire to work past bodily limitations with trying to escape the Matrix. Viewing the world as both filled with information and something tangible allows our character Dan Davis to combine those viewpoints and perform the impossible.




2 comments:

  1. Apparently I can only read your project online but not download it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've fixed the problem, thanks for telling me about it.

      Delete