Techno-Terrors and the Emergence of Cyber-Gothic

Abstract

Inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, cybergothic texts from the late 20th and early 21st century have explored fears of posthuman becomings. While monstrous machineries and techno-hybridizations are, of course, central tropes of the Science Fiction genre, it is within a framework of Gothic textuality that these fears can be explored in a more self-conscious and theoretical manner. This chapter presents a reading of James Tiptree's 'The Girl Who Was Plugged In' (1974) in light of one of the most central questions of cyber-theory - that of control. Harking back to Frankenstein's struggle over narrative, scientific, gendered and otherwise embodied aspects of control, Tiptree's seminal novella proves to be an exemplary text within an emerging self- and theory-conscious, cybergothic mode, addressing questions of genre, gender, techno-embodiment, narrative construction, and the need for (cybernetic) control over our technological monsters in a manner that connects the Gothic with a number of cyber-theoretical concerns.