Techno-Prosthetic Romantic Futurism

Romanticism as Science Fiction

Steven Shaviro suggests we write cultural theory as science fiction--not as if, as. [1]   The suggestion is a good one. If he's right that "science fiction conjures the invisible forces--technological, social, economic, affective, and political--that surround us," then maybe it should set the terms for historical work too. The past lives among us like an alien invader. The Romantics themselves, and a certain nineteen year old girl in particular, were the first to confront the world as science fiction. [2]   We should follow their lead.


Notes

1. See Shaviro's connected: or what it means to live in a network society (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2003). The quotation appears on page xi.

2. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, ed. M. K. Joseph (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1969).


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