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In his 1978 bestseller The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins described humans as "survival machines" whose sole purpose is the replication of genes. All of culture needed to be understood as a side-effect, if not an epiphenomenon, of that defining function. Four years after Dawkins' book was published, Warner Brothers released Blade Runner, an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's dystopian novel Do Androis Dream of Electric Sheep?. Ridley Scott's film presents us with a different kind of survival machine: the replicant, a technology whose sole function is the replication of human beings. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss the ethical, metaphysical, and aesthetic dimensions of one of the greatest and most prophetic science fiction films of all time.

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REFERENCES

Ridley Scott (dir.), Blade Runner

Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
\nPhilip K. Dick, \u201cThe Android and the Human\u201d
\nPhilip K. Dick, \u201cMan, Android, and Machine\u201d
\nDennis Villeneuve (dir.), Blade Runner 2049
\nWeird Studies, Episode 114 on the Wheel of Fortune
\nScott Bukatman, Blade Runner: BFI Film Classics
\nAlan Nourse, The Bladerunner
\nWeird Studies, Episode 115 on Brian Eno
\nRichard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
\nTodd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
\nFredric Jameson, Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
\nWeird Studies, Episode 5 on \u201cWhen Nothing is Cool\u201d
\nJF Martel, \u201cReality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things\u201d
\nJohn Carpenter (dir,), The Thing
\nBeyond Yacht Rock podcast
\nSigmund Freud, \u201cThe Uncanny\u201d
\nWeird Studies, Episode 86 on \u201cThe Sandman\u201d
\nOrson Welles (dir.), Touch of Evil
\nGeorge Orwell, 1984