“New theory?” : the posthumanist academy and the beguilements of the matrix trilogy

Abstract

This essay recognises that the Matrix trilogy has gone beyond the cultish and jacked itself into the mainstream of academic debate. What is it about The Matrix that makes it capable of attracting significant levels of attention within the theoretical humanities, and how does it single itself out from other works (be they filmic, novelistic, or essayistic) which address its same themes but fail to achieve comparable levels of canonicity? This essay will seek to answer these questions by critiquing the canonicity of the Matrix trilogy. It does so as a means towards raising deeper issues on (a) the current renegotiation of canonicity generally, and (b) the relative claim on the academic and popular imaginations of film and texts which address issues concerned with virtual realities and cultures, digital media, and the posthuman. In the process, a number of reflections are offered on the amenability of The Matrix to theoretical readings and on the trilogy’s capacity to serve as a prop for what will be called “new theory.”