Bruce Clarke — From Doo-Wop to Cyberpunk
FORMER SHA NA NA SINGER, IN REVISED ROLE AS PROFESSOR,
TO SPEAK ABOUT NEUROMANCER AT SMU NOV. 1
DALLAS
(SMU) — As “Bruno” in the quirky ’50s-style rock group Sha Na Na, Bruce
Clarke waxed about the blue moon in pompadoured greaser garb. Now, as a
bespectacled
Texas Tech English professor and author, he sings the praises of the
intersection of science and literature via his lecture “The Ecology of
Neuromancer: Cyberpunk, Cyberspace, and High Orbit in Planetary Context.”
Clarke’s
talk, on Thursday, Nov. 1, will be free and open to the public at SMU’s
DeGolyer Library. His visit is part of the Scott-Hawkins Lecture Series
sponsored by
the Department of English in Dedman College of Humanities &
Sciences.
The
event will feature a 6 p.m. reception in the Texana Room, followed by a
6:30 p.m. reading and discussion in the Stanley Marcus Reading Room. To
RSVP, click
here, and for a SMU visitor parking map,
here.
Clarke’s inspiration for the discussion is William Gibson’s 1984 science fiction novel,
Neuromancer, about a has-been computer hacker
hired to pull off the ultimate hack. The groundbreaking work launched the
cyberpunk “high-tech low-life” genre into the literary mainstream.
SMU English professor Dennis Foster says Clarke will discuss how 30 years ago,
Neuromancer introduced the idea of a world located not in the
natural world but in a self-made cyber world, known as Gaia. “So what
happens to the idea of ecology — the study of the relation of humans to
their home/world — when that world is no longer
separable from human makers? Will Gaia take revenge? Tune in Nov. 1 to
find out.”
“The reach between literature and science is the longest kind of reach in academia,” Clarke says in this short
video about his career transformation, which
has resulted in his published works Allegories of Writing (1995), Dora Marsden and Early Modernism (1996),
Energy Forms (2001) and Posthuman Metamorphosis (2008).
Science
and fiction are concepts that have captivated Clarke since his days at
Columbia University, where he returned to graduate after his worldwind
four-year-stint
in Sha Na Na. The punkster pop band grew out of Columbia’s longtime a
capella group the Kingsmen, which changed its name in 1969 to avoid
confusion with the Pacific Northwest band of “Louie, Louie” fame. Three
months later Sha Na Na captured the attention
of a concert producer who thought the band was so counter to the hippie
counterculture as to be cool. This led to their being catapulted into
fame after opening for Jimi Hendrix during the Woodstock Festival.
The
group set off a Fifties nostalgia fashion and culture craze that led to
the Broadway musical “Grease” (1971) and movie (1978) as well as such
TV series as “Happy Days” (1974-1984) and
their own “Sha Na Na” variety show (1977–1981).
Clarke’s
literary aim, he says, is for all of us to “rethink the position of
humanity” when it comes to science. The Texas Tech Horn Professor has
been president of
the Society for Literature and Science and is interim chair of the
English Department in the College of Arts & Sciences. He also is
editor of Intertexts: A Journal of Comparative and Theoretical Reflection, published by TTU Press.
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