Entropy’s Enemies: Postmodern Fission and Transhuman Fusion in the Post-War Era

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article contrasts postmodern writing’s ambivalence to entropy with early-twentieth-century science fiction narratives that combat entropy through imagining collective consciousnesses and modes of being. The texts are well chosen and the contrast works well, but there are a couple of conceptual problems.

The first, and most important is the article’s use of ‘posthumanism’. The article needs to spend more time defining the term ‘posthumanism’ in the introduction (incidentally, a clearer definition of postmodernism would also be helpful). Currently the article’s understanding of posthumanism is at odds with my own and, I believe, with the academic consensus, and seeing the author’s working on this (including quotation from the texts they are taking their understanding of posthumanism from) would be helpful in eliminating any confusion. The author opposes their concept of ‘Enlightenment posthumanism’ to ‘the kind of critical posthumanism found in the academy’, but gives no examples of which writers they are referring to under either category, and no works focused on posthumanism are referenced in the bibliography. My understanding of posthumanism is a critical one that thinks of posthumanism as anti-Enlightenment individual, and therefore the idea of an Enlightenment posthumanism is a contradiction in terms. Perhaps the author can argue for such a thing as ‘Enlightenment posthumanism’, but more work needs to be done to achieve this. I would except to see engagement with key texts on posthumanism such as N. Katherine Hayles How We Became Posthuman and Cary Wolfe’s What is Posthumanism? Engagement with more recent work such as Rosi Braidotti’s The Posthuman and Stefan Herbrechter’s Posthumanism may also prove helpful. I believe these texts fall under the category that the author refers to as ‘critical posthumanism’. I cannot recommend any texts on ‘Enlightenment posthumanism’, but the author is encouraged to explain the intellectual history of the concept in more depth if possible. Alternatively, I might advise the author to consider removing the term posthumanism altogether, perhaps replacing it with ‘transhumanism’ which may be more appropriate.

The second query I had is with the structure of the article. Currently the postmodern texts (which are post-1960) are discussed first, followed by the science fiction texts (which are predominantly pre-1960). This reversal of chronology seems confusing to me and I would recommend the author restructure the paper so that the texts that were written first appear first. This will involve revisiting the argument to show that entropy was resisted before the ambivalence of the postmodern authors cited, but I think this may lead the author to refine their argument further.

This article has a lot of potential and I hope the author has the time to revise these points. I have also attached a PDF file with further comments that I hope you will find helpful.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your insightful comments and feedback. I entirely agree with your suggestions for the article (revising both terminology and structure), and I have attempted to revise it accordingly.

On the terminology: the article originally developed out of a much longer work in which I attempted to carve out an intellectual history of “Enlightenment Posthumanism” as a predecessor to contemporary transhumanism (largely to place transhumanism and its antecedents into a more active dialog with the critical posthumanities of academia). As such, this particular article elides much of that background of “Enlightenment posthumanism” and its relation to academic/critical posthumanism.

My work more broadly delves deeply into the sources you mention (Wolfe, Hayles, Briadotti, etc.), but I think posthumanism might be an unnecessary diversion in a brief article like this. In the context of this single article, I think it actually makes more sense to adopt your secondary solution and change the terminology to “transhumanism” throughout. The crux of this article is about two very different literary/intellectual responses to the notion of entropy, and it would likely be a mistake to additionally attempt to redefine/appropriate the term “posthumanism” in such a short space.

As you’ve suggested, I’ve added clearer definitions of transhumanism and postmodernism to the introduction, and changed the terminology to “transhumanism” throughout.

On structure: I wrestled with section order a great deal, and initially opted to put the more novel argument (re: 1950’s transhumanist texts) at the end, rather than follow basic publishing chronology. The notion that postmodern authors were fascinated by entropy has already been noted by at least Susan Strehle and Brian McHale, while the argument about entropy in 1950’s and 60’s transhumanist texts is relatively novel (at least, in this context). Thus, I saw the postmodern response to entropy as a context (to the reader) to the transhuman response to entropy. But I can certainly see how that structure could cause confusion. In order to make the article clearer, I’ve rearranged the structure into a roughly chronological order, with earlier transhuman texts coming first and later postmodern texts following.

Thanks again for such detailed comments ad feedback!

Reviewer 2 Report

This article is well written and identifies competing "myths" of entropy circulating in the twentieth century, but the overall impact of the argument is vitiated by the framework. The article reads as though representatives of the posthuman "anti-entropic" camp were responding to writers, concepts, and works that came later, historically speaking. It would perhaps be more effective to acknowledge some issues: for instance, that "entropy" is a secondary but visible concern in these earlier "anti-entropic" works, one that has not been discussed adequately; that when viewed in this light, these earlier works enrich our understanding of attitudes toward entropy during the last century, etc. Readers are probably more familiar with the handling of entropy in science fiction from the 1960s on, so this could be presented as a kind of pre-history of the concept, before it became a dominant and recognizable mode. The article would also benefit from more careful positioning of specific writers and their work. For instance, Sturgeon is not usually considered to be cut from the same cloth as "Golden Age," technology- and science-focused writers such as Clarke and Asimov, and his relationship to them should be explained more fully. Dick is often described as anticipating postmodernism while Pynchon is far more closely aligned with it. Finally, the article would benefit from describing trends objectively without appearing to champion or disparage them. The conclusion presently makes a gesture in this direction, but the essay as a whole is inconsistent in this regard.

Author Response

Thank you for your insightful comments and feedback! I’ve used your feedback to revise the article in ways that I believe improve it immensely.

 

On the advice of another reviewer, I’ve changed the term “posthuman” to “transhuman” throughout, to more clearly reflect the use of the terms in the academic humanities.

 

On structure: I wrestled with section order a great deal, and initially opted to put the more novel argument (re: 1950’s transhumanist texts) at the end, rather than follow basic publishing chronology. The notion that postmodern authors were fascinated by entropy has already been noted by at least Susan Strehle and Brian McHale, while the argument about entropy in 1950’s and 60’s transhumanist texts is relatively novel (at least, in this context). Thus, I saw the postmodern response to entropy as a context (to the reader) to the transhuman response to entropy. But I can certainly see how that structure could cause confusion. In order to make the article clearer, I’ve rearranged the structure into a roughly chronological order, with earlier transhuman texts coming first and later postmodern texts following.

 

In fact, inspired by your comment, I’ve reconceptualized the movement from transhumanist denial of entropy to postmodern acceptance of entropy as a societal enactment of the stages of grief.

 

I’ve also attempted to more clearly differentiate the respective cultural positioning of various authors like Sturgeon, Dick, and Pynchon, by clearly explaining the difference between Golden Age and New Wave science fiction.

I’ve also attempted to tidy up the normative language surrounding the various positions, so as not to unfairly disparage either of these movements.

Thank you for your detailed comments and feedback!

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Nice job revising this essay! I'm glad the feedback was of help.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your time and detailed input!