Solarpunk Cyborgs against Cyberpunk’s Pessimism

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which some female-authored solarpunk stories employ cyborg models developed by feminist cyberpunk fiction in order to continue with its traditional role of liberating/liberated ontological subject. The text explores contemporary critical readings of cyberpunk fiction and analyzes Lauren Beukes’ Moxyland (2008), Camille Meyers’ “Solar Child” (2017), and Brenda Cooper’s “For the Snake of Power” (2018) and analyzes the way in which embodied and disembodied female cyborg subjectivities are represented. The article argues that although solarpunk has abandoned the classic cyberpunk idea of subversion in cyberspace, some of the techno-human alliances instigated by it have remained, either developing physical cyborgs liberated from the biological limitations of materiality, as in Meyers’ story, or representing STEM-experienced women who cooperate with AIs in order to fight against capitalism’s material structures of power.