The Moral Uncanny in Black Mirror

The Moral Uncanny in Black Mirror
Author: Margaret Gibson
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2020-11-05
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 303047495X

This erudite volume examines the moral universe of the hit Netflix show Black Mirror. It brings together scholars in media studies, cultural studies, anthropology, literature, philosophy, psychology, theatre and game studies to analyse the significance and reverberations of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian universe with our present-day technologically mediated life world. Brooker’s ground-breaking Black Mirror anthology generates often disturbing and sometimes amusing future imaginaries of the dark side of ubiquitous screen life, as it unleashes the power of the uncanny. This book takes the psychoanalytic idea of the uncanny into a moral framework befitting Black Mirror’s dystopian visions. The volume suggests that the Black Mirror anthology doesn’t just make the viewer feel, on the surface, a strange recognition of closeness to some of its dystopian scenarios, but also makes us realise how very fragile, wavering, fractured, and uncertain is the human moral compass.

Age and Ageing in Contemporary Speculative and Science Fiction

Age and Ageing in Contemporary Speculative and Science Fiction
Author: Sarah Falcus
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2023-01-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1350230677

Focusing on the contemporary period, this book brings together critical age studies and contemporary science fiction to establish the centrality of age and ageing in dystopian, speculative and science-fiction imaginaries. Analysing texts from Europe, North America and South Asia, as well as television programmes and films, the contributions range from essays which establish genre-based trends in the representation of age and ageing, to very focused studies of particular texts and concerns. As a whole, the volume probes the relationship between speculative/science fiction and our understanding of what it is to be a human in time: the time of our own lives and the times of both the past and the future.

The Creation and Inheritance of Digital Afterlives

The Creation and Inheritance of Digital Afterlives
Author: Debra J. Bassett
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2022-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3030916847

This book explores how social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp ‘accidentally’ enable and nurture the creation of digital afterlives, and, importantly, the effect this digital inheritance has on the bereaved. Debra J. Bassett offers a holistic exploration of this phenomenon and presents qualitative data from three groups of participants: service providers, digital creators, and digital inheritors. For the bereaved, loss of data, lack of control, or digital obsolescence can lead to a second loss, and this book introduces the theory of ‘the fear of second loss’. Bassett argues that digital afterlives challenge and disrupt existing grief theories, suggesting how these theories might be expanded to accommodate digital inheritance. This interdisciplinary book will be of interest to sociologists, cyber psychologists, philosophers, death scholars, and grief counsellors. But Bassett’s book can also be seen as a canary in the coal mine for the ‘intentional’ Digital Afterlife Industry (DAI) and their race to monetise the dead. This book provides an understanding of the profound effects uncontrollable timed posthumous messages and the creation of thanabots could have on the bereaved, and Bassett’s conception of a Digital Do Not Reanimate (DDNR) order and a voluntary code of conduct could provide a useful addition to the DAI. Even in the digital societies of the West, we are far from immortal, but perhaps the question we really need to ask is: who wants to live forever?

AI and Emotions in Digital Society

AI and Emotions in Digital Society
Author: Scribano, Adrian
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2023-12-18
Genre: Computers
ISBN:

In the rapidly evolving realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital technologies, a pressing issue confronts academic scholars and social scientists—the profound consequences of AI adoption within the intricate structures of society. Despite its pervasive influence, this critical topic remains largely unexplored in academic circles, leaving a significant knowledge gap regarding how AI reshapes human interactions, institutions, and the fabric of our digital society. AI and Emotions in Digital Society, edited by Adrian Scribano and Maximiliano E Korstanje, emerges as the timely and compelling solution to bridge this divide. In this transformative book, readers embark on an intellectual journey exploring the intricate interplay between society, technology, and emotions. Drawing together high-quality chapters from diverse disciplines and cultural backgrounds, the book fosters critical discussions that delve into the philosophical quandaries underpinning AI's influence, especially within the context of our ever-changing world. By adopting a balanced perspective that acknowledges both risks and opportunities, the book equips postgraduate students, professionals, policymakers, AI analysts, and social scientists with the tools to comprehend the far-reaching effects of AI on human behavior, institutions, and democratic processes. As readers engage with this thought-provoking content, they gain profound insights into how AI impacts various sectors, including education, travel, literature, politics, and cyber-security. AI and Emotions in Digital Society serves as an indispensable resource for navigating the ongoing AI revolution, inspiring informed decision-making, and fostering critical dialogue. By empowering readers to grasp the complexities of AI's role in a new cosmopolitan capitalism, the book opens possibilities for a future where humanity and technology harmoniously coexist, shaping the course of our digitally interconnected society.

Domestic Demons and the Intimate Uncanny

Domestic Demons and the Intimate Uncanny
Author: Thomas G. Kirsch
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2022-10-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 100076334X

This book explores local cultural discourses and practices relating to manifestations and experiences of the demonic, the spectral and the uncanny, probing into their effects on people’s domestic and intimate spheres of life. The chapters examine the uncanny in a cross-cultural manner, involving empirically rich case studies from sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Europe. They use an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to show how people are affected by their intimate interactions with spiritual beings. While several chapters focus on the tensions between public and private spheres that emerge in the context of spiritual encounters, others explore what kind of relationships between humans and demonic entities are imagined to exist and in what ways these imaginations can be interpreted as a commentary on people’s concerns and social realities. Offering a critical look at a form of spiritual experience that often lacks academic examination, this book will be of great use to scholars of Religious Studies who are interested in the occult and paranormal, as well as academics working in Anthropology, Sociology, African Studies, Latin American Studies, Gender Studies and Transcultural Psychology.

Philosophical Reflections on Black Mirror

Philosophical Reflections on Black Mirror
Author: Dan Shaw
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2021-12-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350162191

Black Mirror is a cultural phenomenon. It is a creative and sometimes shocking examination of modern society and the improbable consequences of technological progress. The episodes - typically set in an alternative present, or the near future - usually have a dark and satirical twist that provokes intense question both of the self and society at large. These kind of philosophical provocations are at the very heart of the show. Philosophical reflections on Black Mirror draws upon thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault to uncover how Black Mirror acts as 'philosophical television' questioning human morality and humanity's vulnerability when faced with the inexorable advance of technology.

Living and Dying in a Virtual World

Living and Dying in a Virtual World
Author: Margaret Gibson
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2018-08-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319760998

This book takes readers into stories of love, loss, grief and mourning and reveals the emotional attachments and digital kinships of the virtual 3D social world of Second Life. At fourteen years old, Second Life can no longer be perceived as the young, cutting-edge environment it once was, and yet it endures as a place of belonging, fun, role-play and social experimentation. In this volume, the authors argue that far from facing an impending death, Second Life has undergone a transition to maturity and holds a new type of significance. As people increasingly explore and co-create a sense of self and ways of belonging through avatars and computer screens, the question of where and how people live and die becomes increasingly more important to understand. This book shows how a virtual world can change lives and create forms of memory, nostalgia and mourning for both real and avatar based lives.

X-Men and Philosophy

X-Men and Philosophy
Author: William Irwin
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2009-05-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0470730366

X-Men is one of the most popular comic book franchises ever, with successful spin-offs that include several feature films, cartoon series, bestselling video games, and merchandise. This is the first look at the deeper issues of the X-Men universe and the choices facing its powerful "mutants," such as identity, human ethics versus mutant morality, and self-sacrifice. J. Jeremy Wisnewski (Oneonta, NY) is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Hartwick College and the editor of Family Guy and Philosophy (978-1-4051-6316-3) and The Office and Philosophy (978-1-4051-7555-5). Rebecca Housel (Rochester, NY) is a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, where she teaches about writing and pop culture. For William Irwin's biography, please see below.

After Dark

After Dark
Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2010-07-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307370488

A short, sleek novel of encounters set in the witching hours of Tokyo between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami’s masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore. At its center are two sisters: Yuri, a fashion model sleeping her way into oblivion; and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny’s into lives radically alien to her own: those of a jazz trombonist who claims they’ve met before; a burly female “love hotel” manager and her maidstaff; and a Chinese prostitute savagely brutalized by a businessman. These “night people” are haunted by secrets and needs that draw them together more powerfully than the differing circumstances that might keep them apart, and it soon becomes clear that Yuri’s slumber—mysteriously tied to the businessman plagued by the mark of his crime—will either restore or annihilate her. After Dark moves from mesmerizing drama to metaphysical speculation, interweaving time and space as well as memory and perspective into a seamless exploration of human agency—the interplay between self-expression and understanding, between the power of observation and the scope of compassion and love. Murakami’s trademark humor, psychological insight and grasp of spirit and morality are here distilled with an extraordinary, harmonious mastery.