Abstract
Building upon the introduction in Chapter 1, this chapter focuses on the cultural rendering of modernity’s ‘techno-scientific’ utopias. Through an exploration of works of both ‘social science’ and ‘science fiction’ Chapter 2 explores how modern culture has built projective fantasies about the future around technology’s power to transform human existence. It is suggested here that more recent contributions to this cultural tradition (e.g., the speculative works of Iain M. Banks, Neal Asher, Isaac Asimov and William Gibson) mark a shift in which technological utopias are now projected into the world of the virtual.
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© 2014 Majid Yar
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Yar, M. (2014). The Techno-Scientific Utopias of Modernity: From Real to Virtual. In: The Cultural Imaginary of the Internet: Virtual Utopias and Dystopias. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137436696_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137436696_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-49356-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-43669-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social Sciences CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)