McCorry, S. (2018) Literacy, Bêtise, and the Production of Species Difference in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Extrapolation, 59 (1). pp. 25-46. ISSN 0014-5483
Abstract
Postwar literature (and postwar SF in particular) is marked by a concern that emerging techno-cultural developments would undermine the sovereignty of the humanist subject. The mass production of culture and an increasing dependency on technologies were seen as inimical to individualism, literary culture, and human agency. In the same period, new research into the cognitive and behavioural capacities of nonhuman animals put further pressure on the exceptional status of the humanist subject. Drawing on recent work in posthumanist theory and animal studies, I produce a new reading of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in the light of this twofold crisis of human exceptionalism. I claim that Bradbury’s novel typifies a broader tendency in postwar culture to use animal life as a metric by which to gauge the supposed technological attenuation of subjectivity, and I explore how his pessimistic diagnosis of the emergent mass culture discovers a surprising conjuncture of human, animal, and technology in the postwar moment.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 Liverpool University Press. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Extrapolation. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Ray Bradbury; Fahrenheit 451; Science Fiction Studies; Animal Studies; Posthumanism; Literature and Technology |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of English (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 29 Nov 2017 10:08 |
Last Modified: | 19 Apr 2020 00:38 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.3828/extr.2018.3 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Liverpool University Press |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3828/extr.2018.3 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:124488 |