Paradoxes of Transrobotism: an Anti-Transhumanist Reading of Chris Columbus’s Bicentennial Man
Paradoxes of Transrobotism: an Anti-Transhumanist Reading of Chris Columbus’s Bicentennial Man
Author(s): Andrzej Sławomir KowalczykSubject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Other Language Literature
Published by: Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL & Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II
Keywords: transhumanism—criticism; androids; Chris Columbus; Bicentennial Man; film adaptation; science-fiction cinema
Summary/Abstract: This essay proposes a re-reading of Chris Columbus’s film Bicentennial Man (1999) as a critique of transhumanism. Construing the robot protagonist, Andrew Martin, as a metaphor of the human being, the essay argues that the series of modifications he undergoes is a reversed version, as it were, of transformations postulated in Nick Bostrom’s “Letter from Utopia” and the Transhumanist Declaration—the famous manifestos of transhumanism. Consequently, the film is interpreted as an affirmation of humanity defined by conservative opponents of transhumanism.
Journal: Roczniki Humanistyczne
- Issue Year: 66/2018
- Issue No: 11S
- Page Range: 137-150
- Page Count: 14
- Language: English