Neoliberalism and Cyberpunk Science Fiction - Living on the Edge of Burnout

Caroline Alphin presents an original exploration of biopolitics by examining it through the lens of cyberpunk science fiction.

Comprised of five chapters, Neoliberalism and Cyberpunk Science Fiction is guided by four central themes: biopolitics, intensification, resilience, and accelerationism. The first chapters examine the political possibilities of cyberpunk as a genre of science fiction and introduce one kind of neoliberal subject, the self-monitoring cyborg. These are individuals who join fitness/health tracking devices and applications to their body to "self-cultivate". Here, Alphin presents concrete examples of how fitness trackers are a strategy of neoliberal governmentality under the guise of self-cultivation. Moving away from Foucault-s biopolitics to themes of intensity and resilience, Alphin draws largely from William Gibson-s Neuromancer, Neal Stephenson-s Snow Crash, Richard K. Morgan-s Altered Carbon, along with the film Bla