Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future
Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future brings a welter of unknown elements of Lem's life, career, and literary legacy to light. Part One traces the context of his cultural influence, telling the story of one of the greatest writers and thinkers of the century. It includes a comprehensive critical overview of Lem's literary and philosophical oeuvre which comprises not only the classics like Solaris, but his untranslated first novels, realistic prose, experimental works, volumes of nonfiction, latter-day metafiction, as well as the final twenty years of polemics and essays.
The critical and interpretive Part Two examines a range of Lem's novels with a view to examining the intellectual vistas they open up before us. It focuses on several of Lem's major but less studied books. "Game, Set, Lem" uses game theory to shed light on his arguably most surreal novel, the Kafkaesque and claustrophobic Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (1961). "Betrization Is the Worst Solution... Except for All Others" takes a close look at the quasi-utopia of Return From the Stars (1961) and at the concept of ethical cleansing and mandatory de-aggression. "Errare Humanum Est" focuses on the popular science thriller The Invincible (1964) in the context of evolution. "A Beachbook for Intellectuals" is a critical fugue on Lem's medical thriller cum crime mystery, The Chain of Chance (1976).

Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future closes with a two-part coda. "Fiasco" recapitulates and reflects on the literary and cognitive themes of Lem's farewell novel, and "Happy End of the World!" reviews The Blink of an Eye, Lem's farewell book of analyses and prognoses from the cusp of our millennium.
"1121340876"
Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future
Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future brings a welter of unknown elements of Lem's life, career, and literary legacy to light. Part One traces the context of his cultural influence, telling the story of one of the greatest writers and thinkers of the century. It includes a comprehensive critical overview of Lem's literary and philosophical oeuvre which comprises not only the classics like Solaris, but his untranslated first novels, realistic prose, experimental works, volumes of nonfiction, latter-day metafiction, as well as the final twenty years of polemics and essays.
The critical and interpretive Part Two examines a range of Lem's novels with a view to examining the intellectual vistas they open up before us. It focuses on several of Lem's major but less studied books. "Game, Set, Lem" uses game theory to shed light on his arguably most surreal novel, the Kafkaesque and claustrophobic Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (1961). "Betrization Is the Worst Solution... Except for All Others" takes a close look at the quasi-utopia of Return From the Stars (1961) and at the concept of ethical cleansing and mandatory de-aggression. "Errare Humanum Est" focuses on the popular science thriller The Invincible (1964) in the context of evolution. "A Beachbook for Intellectuals" is a critical fugue on Lem's medical thriller cum crime mystery, The Chain of Chance (1976).

Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future closes with a two-part coda. "Fiasco" recapitulates and reflects on the literary and cognitive themes of Lem's farewell novel, and "Happy End of the World!" reviews The Blink of an Eye, Lem's farewell book of analyses and prognoses from the cusp of our millennium.
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Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future

Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future

by Peter Swirski
Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future

Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future

by Peter Swirski

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Overview

Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future brings a welter of unknown elements of Lem's life, career, and literary legacy to light. Part One traces the context of his cultural influence, telling the story of one of the greatest writers and thinkers of the century. It includes a comprehensive critical overview of Lem's literary and philosophical oeuvre which comprises not only the classics like Solaris, but his untranslated first novels, realistic prose, experimental works, volumes of nonfiction, latter-day metafiction, as well as the final twenty years of polemics and essays.
The critical and interpretive Part Two examines a range of Lem's novels with a view to examining the intellectual vistas they open up before us. It focuses on several of Lem's major but less studied books. "Game, Set, Lem" uses game theory to shed light on his arguably most surreal novel, the Kafkaesque and claustrophobic Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (1961). "Betrization Is the Worst Solution... Except for All Others" takes a close look at the quasi-utopia of Return From the Stars (1961) and at the concept of ethical cleansing and mandatory de-aggression. "Errare Humanum Est" focuses on the popular science thriller The Invincible (1964) in the context of evolution. "A Beachbook for Intellectuals" is a critical fugue on Lem's medical thriller cum crime mystery, The Chain of Chance (1976).

Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future closes with a two-part coda. "Fiasco" recapitulates and reflects on the literary and cognitive themes of Lem's farewell novel, and "Happy End of the World!" reviews The Blink of an Eye, Lem's farewell book of analyses and prognoses from the cusp of our millennium.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781781381861
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Publication date: 09/01/2015
Series: Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies LUP , #51
Pages: 224
Product dimensions: 6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Peter Swirski is Distinguished Professor of American Studies & Literature at Sun Yat-sen University and Professor of American Literature & Culture at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. His books include Stanislaw Lem: Selected Letters to Michael Kandel (LUP, 2014).

Table of Contents

COGITO ERGO LEM
A Hard Nut to Crack - Pas de Deux- The Blink of the Cosmic Eye

PART I: BIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER 1. LIFE AND TIMES
A Master of Thrills and Chills- The Reading of This Book Is Good for You- Renaissance Polymath- Lemberg- Highcastle - Well Over 180- Operation Barbarossa- Jan Donabidowicz - Lvov to Cracow - Social Parasite- The Genre In Which I Write - Borges for the Space Age - Writing Consortium - Wissenschaftskolleg - Away From the Typewriter - On the Sidelines - Encyclopedic Oracle

CHAPTER 2. IN THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF BOOKS
Ariadne's Thread - The New World of Adventure - The Other Inner Planet - Different Face - Allegorical Pen - SimCity - Hylas and Philonous - The Tricky Relation - The Golden Phase - A Happy Ending - Ammer-Ka - Out Yonder In Space - Dicty - The Seat of His Pants - Of Extraterrestrial Origin - A Critical Point - Cat's Cradle - Hypertrophic Trends - Hoary Fallacy - Homo Rationis Capax - Der Völkermord - The Thanatos Syndrome - After the Last Goosebump Has Vanished - The Entire Human Race - Trompe l'Oeil - LEM! - My Farewell - Moratorium - The World According to Lem - Man and Machine


PART II: ESSAYS

CHAPTER 3. GAME, SET, LEM
Ariadne's Thread - Cold War Hysteria - The Third Pentagon - Nuclear-age Quixote - The Lottery in Babylon - I-Guess-What-You-Guess-What-I-Guess - Barnaby the Scrivener - Whoops! Apocalypse! - The Mission - Minimax/Maximin - The Mission Game - Subjective Rationality - The Collusion Game - Dead Men Don't Tell Lies - An Allegorical Everyman - The Decipherment of Linear B

CHAPTER 4. BETRIZATION IS THE WORST SOLUTION… EXCEPT FOR ALL OTHERS
Time Machine - Word Become Flesh - Defanging the Human Beast - La bête humaine - The Hobbesian Premise - It Can't Happen Here - 50-50 - Bennett, Trimaldi and Zakharov - The Technological Grail - Less Than Human - Chihuahuas in Eden - Nietzschean Superman - Droids, Borgs, and Bots - One for the Old Generation, One for the New - D-i-s-a-s-t-e-r

CHAPTER 5. ERRARE HUMANUM EST
The Invincible Has Landed - Models of Inquiry - From Literature to Biterature - The Alien as Alien - Knowledge and Metaknowledge - Regis II - Part of the Landscape - Nature Plays Fair - Ch. I., Ch. Ph., Ch. T., Ch. B. - Omnia Vincit Armor - Dictyostelium discoideum - Overzealous Carpenters - The Infallible

CHAPTER 6. A BEACHBOOK FOR INTELLECTUALS
A Novel of Ideas - Gun for Hire - Whodunit with Probability as the Butler - The Devil's Parody of the Movies - The Locked Room - Terrorism Is Not a Hardware Issue - Good Cop, Bad Cop - The Garden of Earthly Delights - You, Me, Pulsars, and the Page You're Reading - Ladykillers - Hero or Not? - Runny Nose - A Writer for All Reasons

PART III: CODA

CHAPTER 7. FIASCO
You'll See the Quintans - The War of the Worlds - Intelligent and Electronic - Let's Do It Our Way - Mark Tempe - The Digla - Crystal Ball - To Make a Long Story Short

CHAPTER 8. HAPPY END OF THE WORLD!
The Blink of an Eye - Glow-In-the-Dark Monkeys - Cerebroproteinal Neuroprocessor - Encyclopedia of Ignorance

APPENDIX. STANISLAW LEM: BOOKS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
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