Joseph Hurtgen

Hi, soupers!

I'm Joseph Hurtgen, a published author and PhD, specializing in science fiction literature. I write and blog about science fiction. I most frequently analyze SF novels but also discuss movies and other popular culture from time to time. I live in Kentucky and teach college composition courses at a local community college.

My first book is called The Archive Incarnate. The Archive Incarnate discusses embodied archives in science fiction. I question how recorded, stored information shapes society, making law, enfranchising some groups and disenfranchising others. I explore embodiment of archives in the subject, controlling gender and the body through archives, and the role of information technology in archival control and archival access through readings of five authors: Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Neal Stephenson. In sf, anxieties of control are mapped onto corporate and state powers. These powers are nodes for the homogenization and control of society, while individuality is envisioned as the technology for resisting oppressive structures. Sf offers narratives that embody archives—sending characters into archival spaces and making them into archives—to elucidate the kinds of anxieties associated with archival control of society and to demonstrate the revolutionary potential of the individual.
 
Joseph, welcome to our community. :smiley:

For anybody interested, here's a direct to his book The Archive Incarnate.

 
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