A work of literature is a fiction in which we immerse ourselves to experience things that we often do not have access to in the real world. Likewise, virtual reality video games are fictions that players immerse themselves in to have experiences that are inaccessible, or perhaps unacceptable, in the real world. What cyberpunk and its literary progeny offer us then, is a double level of fiction for their readers: the “real” narrative world, and the artificial world in which the characters immerse themselves. In fiction, as in life, the separation between realities, real and virtual, is persistently unstable, in spite of their arguably objective, stable ontological status. This presentation will discuss the canonical Neuromancer along with the recently published homage to 1980’s culture Ready Player One and fantasy series A Modern Witch and attend to the role of virtual realities and the slippage between the real and the virtual that occurs in the texts. How strictly do these different narratives maintain the divide between real and virtual? Does the intrusion of the virtual world have a positive or negative influence on the “real” world and vice versa? When does the narrative/narrator completely erase the divide between the worlds? Does genre influence how the virtual is used? Considering these questions allows us to reflect on the anxieties that produce these narratives and that have underscored debates about reading and art for centuries: what happens to humans and human civilization when the fictional becomes the real?
About the presenterLeigha McReynolds
Leigha McReynolds has a PhD in English Literature. Her dissertation was on science and the supernatural in 19th Century British Literature, but her current research focus is contemporary science fiction. She has published chapters in Disability in Science Fiction and Dune for the 21st Century, the first edited collections of scholarly work on their respective subjects. In her teaching, Leigha uses science fiction to engage students across disciplines: she is currently an Assistant Clinical Professor for University Honors at UMD. She also teaches literature classes for adults at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. and runs a writing coaching business to help aspiring writers of all kinds achieve their personal and professional goals. She is the chair of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Area and VP of Publications for the MAPACA Board which entails being Managing Editor for the organization’s online journal: Response.