論丹•西蒙斯《海柏利昂》與《海柏利昂的殞落》中之帝國主義、烏托邦想像與後人類論述

Imperialism/Empire, Utopian Imagination and Posthuman Consciousness in Dan Simmons’s Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion

李麗雯(Lee-Wen Lee)

指導教授 ： 王惠茹

國立暨南國際大學/人文學院/外國語文學系/碩士(2011年)

https://doi.org/10.6837/NCNU.2011.00141

摘要

本論文主要研究帝國主義/帝國，烏扥邦想像與後人類論述是如何在丹．西蒙斯的海柏利昂系列被再現與批判。早期的科幻小說經常展現出渴望征服宇宙的慾望或是描繪對於未來烏扥邦社會的美好想像。自1970年代，西蒙斯就開始構思海柏利昂，並建構出他想像中的人類霸聯，而這個人類的帝國則同時包容了兩種帝國的模式：一種是傳統擴張式的帝國主義；另一種則是哈爾特(Michael Hardt)與內格里(Antonio Negri)在後現代思考模式下所提出的的新帝國概念。因此，西蒙斯的作品或許可以被認為是對於冷戰及其相關影響的反思。此外，西蒙斯的反戰立場也使他最終設計讓這個帝國主義的人類霸聯被摧毀，透過一個舊時代的毀滅，烏扥邦新世界將因此而產生。在這個理想的未來，後人類主義與科技將扮演相當重要的角色。儘管烏扥邦並無法實現於現實社會，烏扥邦文本的模式卻總是不斷地隨著各時期的人類文化而轉型。因此，海柏利昂詩篇將會是一個很好的素材去分析西蒙斯如何去反應當時美國的社會現象；同時，西蒙斯的烏扥邦想像也可以說是因應在高度電腦科技發展的後人類生命形式的期盼。然而，由於烏扥邦是一個無法達成的理想，它的敘述本身即有它不可避免的侷限存在。本論文假設，後人類理論或許能夠打破烏托邦的同質狀態，擴大並重新思考烏托邦的異質狀態。

關鍵字

帝國主義 ； 帝國 ； 烏托邦 ； 後人類 ； 丹•西蒙斯 ； 海柏利昂

並列摘要

This M.A. thesis aims to study the representation and critique of imperialism and Empire, utopian imagination, and posthuman consciousness in Dan Simmons’s popular science fiction series, Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. Early science fictions often showed the desire for conquest in the galactic wars and drew on the utopian hope for a better life in the future. Since the conception of the Hyperion saga began in the 1970s, Simmons’s work can be read as a reaction to the concerns arising from the conflicts in the Cold War, hence his interest in constructing an imaginary Hegemony in Hyperion fictions to explore the issues of traditional territorial imperialism and the postmodern Empire conceptualized by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, among others. Simmons’s anti-war stance also made him destroy the imperial Hegemony in order to call into being a possible utopian new world in the future in which posthumanism, enabled by technology, plays an important role. Although the perfect world never exists in the empirical present, the mode of utopian text is always being constantly transformed along with every period of human culture. Thus, the Hyperion cantos would be the best material to analyze the problems of contemporary American society from which and against which Simmons wrote, and his utopian imagination that looks forward to new posthuman species that rely on highly developed computer technology to improve human conditions. However, because the utopian narrative has an inherent limitation, exposing the problems in the empirical present while failing to realize Utopian Ideal in the hopeful future, the utopian imagination seems an impossible solution to humans’ utopian hope. This thesis assumes that the posthuman condition, which creates the possibility to break up the utopian limitation of the homogeneous state, would be a possible solution to build an alternative evolutionary model after the destruction of the imperial Hegemony.

並列關鍵字

imperialism ； Empire ； Hardt and Negri ； utopia ； posthumanism ； Dan Simmons ； Hyperion ； The Fall of Hyperion

參考文獻

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