An Imaginary, Average Sun

<p><em>An Imaginary, Average Sun </em>is a novel about J, a computer programmer and data analyst, who discovers an algorithm that can predict her future. The book is composed of sections and fragments that investigate the lead up to and fall out from J’s discovery and the effect it has upon her work, her marriage, and her sense of self. The book skips back and forth between characters as well as forward and backwards in time so that the creation of unity and meaning in the novel will to some extent necessitate the active participation of the reader, interrogating how technology disjoints, fragments, and complicates concepts of self and meaning. From this central premise and through this formal experimentation, the novel explores questions about free will, representation and reality, and our relationship with computer technology. Are we the ultimate source of our ideas and actions? To what extent are we influenced, or even determined, by social and technological systems out of our control? And how do such questions shape our sense of reality and of ourselves?</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Fine Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2016

Author dc:creator

• Weinkam, Matthew

Contributors dc:contributor

• Matt Frank

• technology
• predictive analytics
• future
• algorithm
• free will
• fragments
• J
• time
• vending machine
• Fiction

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.nmu.edu/theses/107

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.nmu.edu:theses-1118