The art and science of Stanislaw Lem

206 Pages·2008·0.633 MB·English

by  Lem, Stanisław;Swirski, Peter

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF STANISLAW LEM
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The Art and Science of
Stanislaw Lem
Edited by
Peter Swirski
McGill-Queen’s University Press
Montreal & Kingston · London · Ithaca
© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2006
isbn-13: 978-0-7735-3046-1 isbn-10: 0-7735-3046-0
Legal deposit third quarter 2006
Bibliothèque nationale du Québec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
This book has been published in cooperation with the Wirth Institute for
Australian and Central European Studies, University of Alberta,
Edmonton, Canada.
McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada
Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge
the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program (bpidp) for our publishing
activities.
“Solaris! Solaris. Solaris!” by Peter Swirski was originally published online
in Central Europe Review (CER), 8 January 2003.
www.Culture.tol.cz/look/CER/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=
14&NRIssue=43&NrSection=3&NrArticle=8246
“(Un)masking the Agent: Stanislaw Lem’s ‘The Mask’”
by N. Katherine Hayles was originally published in My Mother Was a Computer:
Digital Subject and Literary Texts (University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
The art and science of Stanislaw Lem / edited by Peter Swirski.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-7735-3046-1 isbn-10: 0-7735-3046-0
1. Lem, Stanislaw, 1921- – Criticism and interpretation.
i. Swirski, Peter, 1963-
pg7158.l392a57 2006 891.8'537 c2006-901704-2
Typeset in New Baskerville 10.5/13
by Infoscan Collette, Quebec City
This book is dedicated to
Earle Waugh and Wacek Osadnik:
humanists and pedagogues.
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Contents
Introduction: The Man behind the Giant 3
peter swirski
1 Smart Robots 13
stanislaw lem
2 (Un)masking the Agent: Stanislaw Lem’s “The Mask” 22
n. katherine hayles
3 Betrization Is the Worst Solution … with the Exception of All
Others 47
peter swirski
4 A Freudian Peek at Lem’s Fiasco 72
michael kandel
5 Summa technologiae – Looking Back and Ahead 81
peter butko
6 Models of Evolution in the Writings of Stanislaw Lem 104
jerzy jarze˛bski
7 Skepticism, Realism, Fallibilism: On Lem’s Epistemological
Themes 117
paisley livingston
viii Contents
8 Lem, Central Europe, and the Genre of Technological
Empire 130
istvan csicsery-ronay
9 Lem on Film 153
krzysztof loska
10 Solaris! Solaris. Solaris? 172
peter swirski
Stanislaw Lem: A Brief Chronological Biography 181
Bibliography 183
About the Authors 195
THE ART AND SCIENCE OF STANISLAW LEM