Transformation of technology discourse in Jules Verne's novels

Abstract

Jules Verne, one of the most visionary writers of his time and even the human history, put technology at the center of his literary universe and wrote novels in which he predicted the progress of humanity on the line of civilization centuries ago. However, his early works, his hopeful discourses on the human civilization’s development shifted to a more pessimistic and anxious direction in the face of the developing technology in his works after the 1880s. In this study, Jules Verne's early novels From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and Around the Moon (1869) and technology discourses in his late novel The Purchase of the North Pole or Topsy-Turvy (1889), which is the third and last novel of the series, are discussed comparatively within the framework of the two interrelated and contemporary concepts, transhumanism and posthumanism. Even though these concepts were suggested approximately 100 years after Jules Verne's active years, this study claims that they overlap with the technology discourses contained in his works. It reveals that his early works prioritize a human-centered technological progress along a transhumanist line. On the other hand, this study also insists on the fact that in his late works where he remained on a posthumanist axis, in other words, produced a new technological discourse in which he criticizes the Anthropocene era putting mankind in the center and evaluates other beings in the background, and conveys his concerns arising from hierarchies between living and non-living, nature-culture and races. As a result of the comparison, this transformation of Jules Verne's technology discourse over time has been tried to be examined in the context of similarities and differences between transhumanist and posthumanist discourses.