Robinsoniads as Stories of Technology and Transformation
Robinsoniads as Stories of Technology and Transformation

Summary/Abstract: Springing from Defoe’s Enlightenment narrative, the Robinsoniads explore the modern spirit as defined by reason, technology, and self-reliance, which are paralleled by solitude and individualism. They also provide opportunities for questioning, for facing the self, for confronting and relating with l’autrui, the other, and, ultimately, for self transformation: What is the direction and outcome of this transformation? Do the Robinsoniads increase our knowledge and awareness of the self? Do they leave us with a world that is a better place for the experience of the Robinsoniad? What do they tell us about the dialectics of the modern self? While raising the above questions, this article explores Tournier’s Vendredi ou les limbes du Pacifique and its relationship with modernity and postmodernity, while proposing metamodernity as a possible endeavor to bypass some of the difficulties arising in the wake of the Enlightenment.

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