The Self and the Cyberpunk: Posthumanism from Neuromancer to Ghost in the Shell

Author: Qiao Jun Lee

Field of Study: Business Administration

Program Affiliation: Source Project Research Program

Faculty Mentors: Will Glovinsky

Easel: 69

Timeslot: Midday

Abstract: Emerging from the cultural and political zeitgeist of the 1980s, the cyberpunk aesthetic leverages developments in technology and simulated reality to blur traditionally defined binaries such as human vs. machine, reality vs. simulation, and the physical body vs. the virtual mind. Scholars such as Fredric Jameson and N. Katherine Hayles have explored cyberpunk literature and film as reflections of broader postmodern anxieties about technology, identity, and corporate power, yet disagree on whether cyberpunk ultimately resists or reproduces these structures. Through analysis of works such as Neuromancer (1984), Ghost in the Shell (1995), and Snow Crash (1992), this project argues that the unique narrative affordances of cyberspace—such as the projection of consciousness into virtual environments, the modification of identity, and the dissolution of physical limits—enable forms of experience impossible in reality. These affordances allow cyberpunk to stage identity as fragmented and transferable—in doing so, cyberspace becomes a site where the self can be challenged and remade.