Liberal Humanism and Technology in Don DeLillo’s The Silence (2020)
Keywords:
Don DeLillo's The Silence, liberal humanism, technology, affectivity, identityAbstract
Considering Don DeLillo's The Silence (2020) in the context of the contemporary crisis in humanistic values, in this article we shed some light on it in terms of its relation with the discourse of liberal humanism, particularly vis-à-vis technology. Arguably, the novel’s ambivalent stance on technology originates in an ambivalence at the core of liberal humanism: the belief in progress and the anxiety that it may transform humanity beyond recognition. The concern with humanism and its bearing on technology could further be seen in DeLillo's questions about identity, individuality and affectivity. We maintain that rather than considering DeLillo’s novel as a “posthumanist” one stressing the sinister aspects of technology, as many studies suggest, it could be approached as a liberal humanist work displaying an ambiguously liberal portrayal of the impact of technology on humanity. Considering the novel in the light of the broader discussions of the ambivalences of liberal humanism, we offer a fresh perspective on the figuration of technology in it, arguing that technology is presented as partly partaking of the category of the uncanny, as both immensely empowering and menacing, as simultaneously “familiar” and sinisterly alien. As such, DeLillo’s most recent novel to date presents technology as both “human” and “posthuman”; for, it has both enhanced human possibilities and has problematized the very idea of being human.References
Baelo-Allué, S. (2022). Technological Vulnerability in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Don DeLillo's The Silence (2020). In Miriam Fernández Santiago & Cristina M. Gámez-Fernández, (Ed.), Representing Vulnerabilities in Contemporary Literature (pp. 135-149). Routledge.
Bagherzadeh Samani, Bahareh, Hossein Pirnajmuddin, & Behnoush Akhavan. (2020). Don DeLillo’s Mao II: A Virilian Reading. Neohelicon, 47(1), 315-330.
Braidotti, Rosi. (2013). The Posthuman. Polity.
Conte, J. M. (2023). Screen, Image and the Technological Sublime. In Catherine Gander (Ed.). The Edinburgh Companion to Don DeLillo and the Arts (pp. 290-303). Edinburgh UP.
Davies, T. (1997). Humanism. Routledge.
DeLillo, D. (2021). The Silence. Scribner.
---. (2016). Zero K. Scribner.
---. (2003). Cosmopolis. Scribner.
Drees, W. B. (2016). Humans, Humanities, and Humanism in an Age of Technology. In Anthony. B. Pinn, (Ed.), Humanism and Technology: Opportunities and Challenges (pp.15-30). Palgrave Macmillan.
Duvall, John N. (2008). Introduction: The Power of History and the Persistence of Mystery. In John N. Duvall, (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo (pp. 1-10). Cambridge University Press.
Gemović, A. (2022). When the Screens Go Off: The Apocalypse of Hyperreality in Don Delillo’s The Silence. Belgrade English Language and Literature Studies, 14(1), 181-200.
Grassie, W. (2016). Which Humanist Are You? Reflections on Our Trans- and Posthumanity. In Anthony. B. Pinn, (Ed.), Humanism and Technology: Opportunities and Challenges (pp. 31-54). Palgrave Macmillan.
Gregg, M, & Gregory S. (2010). An Inventory of Shimmers. In Melissa Gregg & Gregory Seigworth, (Ed.), The Affect Theory Reader (pp. 1-25). Duke University Press.
Harack, K. (2013). Embedded and Embodied Memories: Body, Space, and Time in Don DeLillo's White Noise and Falling Man. Contemporary Literature, 54(2), 303-336
Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke UP.
Knight, P. (2008). DeLillo, Postmodernism, Postmodernity. In John N. Duvall, (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo (pp. 27-40). Cambridge University Press.
Laist, R. (2022). Technology: Science/fiction. In J. Kavadlo (Ed.), Don DeLillo in Context (pp. 189–195). Cambridge University Press.
LeClair, T. (1987). The Loop: DeLillo and the System Novel. University of Illinois Press.
Morphet, T. (1996). Stranger Fictions: Trajectories in the Liberal Novel. World Literature Today. 70(1), 53-58.
Ngai, S. (2004). Ugly feelings. Harvard University Press.
Pinn, Anthony B. (2021). Introduction. In Anthony B. Pinn, (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Humanism (pp. XV-XXViii). Oxford University Press.
---. Introduction. (2016). In Anthony B. Pinn, (Ed.), Humanism and Technology: Opportunities and Challenges (pp.1-11). Palgrave Macmillan.
Pirnajmuddin, Hossein & Bahare Bagherzadeh Samani. (2019). Don DeLillo’s White Noise: A Virilian Perspective. Text Matters, 9(9), 356-373.
Rutsky, R. L. (2017). Technologies. In Bruce Clarke and Manuela Rossini, (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Posthuman (pp.182–195). Cambridge University Press.
Sougri, Laila. (2023). Representations of Technoculture in Don DeLillo’s Novels. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003407768
Sun, J. (2022). The Human Slivers of a Civilization: Language Events in Don DeLillo’s The Silence. English Studies,103(6), 961–982.
Suyoufie, F. F., & Dagamseh, A. M. (2024). Don DeLillo's Descent into Posthuman Anxieties in Zero K and The Silence. Orbis Litterarum, 80(5), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1111/oli.12474
Tardi, M. (2021). Whenever there’s too much Technology: A review of Don DeLillo’s The Silence (Scribner, 2020). Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture, 11, 428–431. https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.11.28
Vallelly, Neil. (2021). Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness. Goldsmiths Press.
Van der Weele, Cor, and Henk van den Belt. (2021). Humanism and Technology. In Anthony B. Pinn, (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Humanism (pp.714-735). Oxford University Press.
Wolf, Philip. (2022). Death, Time and Mortality in the Later Novels of Don DeLillo. Routledge.
Downloads
Additional Files
Published
Issue
Section
License
If the article is accepted for publication, copyright of this article will be vested to UKM Press, National University of Malaysia (UKM).
All articles published in this journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, unless otherwise stated.
