Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Scott Bukatman's Terminal Identity --referring to both the site of the termination of the conventional "subject" and the birth of a new subjectivity constructed at the computer terminal or television screen--puts to rest any lingering doubts of the significance of science fiction in contemporary cultural studies. Demonstrating a comprehensive knowledge, both of the history of science fiction narrative from its earliest origins, and of cultural theory and philosophy, Bukatman redefines the nature of human identity in the Information Age.
Drawing on a wide range of contemporary theories of the postmodern--including Fredric Jameson, Donna Haraway, and Jean Baudrillard--Bukatman begins with the proposition that Western culture is suffering a crisis brought on by advanced electronic technologies. Then in a series of chapters richly supported by analyses of literary texts, visual arts, film, video, television, comics, computer games, and graphics, Bukatman takes the reader on an odyssey that traces the postmodern subject from its current crisis, through its close encounters with technology, and finally to new self-recognition. This new "virtual subject," as Bukatman defines it, situates the human and the technological as coexistent, codependent, and mutally defining.
Synthesizing the most provocative theories of postmodern culture with a truly encyclopedic treatment of the relevant media, this volume sets a new standard in the study of science fiction--a category that itself may be redefined in light of this work. Bukatman not only offers the most detailed map to date of the intellectual terrain of postmodern technology studies--he arrives at new frontiers, providing a propitious launching point for further inquiries into the relationship of electronic technology and culture.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Bukatman's text uses the double meaning of "terminal" (as endpoint and as computer station) to focus his study of change in human identity and reality in the information age. Drawing his examples equally from science fiction texts and film as well as from television and comic books, he sets up a five-chapter sequence: (1) the electronic screen as a transitional surface into a reality that has become virtual, (2) electronic space as the arena of this reality, (3) bodily engagement that penetrates this reality, (4) the transformation of human identity from organic to electronic, and (5) the ambivalence of this transformation. This sequence is heavily infused with postmodernist critical theory, using Fredric Jameson as a point of departure and Jean Baudrillard as the most frequently cited critic. Supported by 40 pages of notes, a 20-page bibliography and filmography, and a 17-page index, the argument is densely constructed and heavily referenced. Graduate.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Scott Bukatman is Associate Professor of Art and Art History at Stanford University. He is the author of Terminal Identity: The Virtual Subject in Postmodern Science Fiction, published by Duke University Press.