Alexander Wolf Writings

Through understanding the process of postmodernity as a transitionary period, this paper explores the representation of the postmodern identity crisis within CD Projekt Red’s video game Cyberpunk 2077. It is contrasted with Heiner Müller’s drama Hamletmachine, through the theory of the semiotics of the subject. Focusing on Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject, the analysis examines how these works reflect on their respective cultural paradigm shifts and represent the changing tendencies regarding the constitution of the socially positioned human subject. Hamletmachine establishes Hamlet as a self-conflicting subject within a postmodern framework and introduces the machine as an abject entity, while Cyberpunk 2077 immerses players in an interactive narrative that challenges their socially defined subject positions.

This summer saw the publication of our jointly authored chapter, “Looking for the World in Hungarian Literature: Foreign Authors in Early Twentieth-Century Periodicals”, written with Jessie Labov, Szilvia Maróthy, and Róbert Péter. The chapter is published in Hungarian Literature as World Literature, edited by Péter Hajdu and Zoltán Z. Varga and published by Bloomsbury Academic.

Growing out of our collaborative research at the Digital Humanities Laboratory of the University of Szeged, the chapter reflects the sustained hard work, expertise, and commitment of the entire team. An important part of the project was our use of the tool, AVOBMAT—Analysis and Visualisation of Bibliographic Metadata and Texts—which supported our analysis and visualisation of patterns among the foreign authors represented in A Hét and Nyugat. It was a genuine honour to work alongside such dedicated colleagues and contribute to this publication, and I am immensely proud of what we achieved together.