Cypherpunk Subculture as a Receptive Community: On the Material of the Reception of William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy

The thesis is devoted to the analysis of the subculture of cypherpunks on the material of the reception of the trilogy ‘Cyberspace’ (1984-1988) by the writer William Gibson. The cypherpunks are still practically unexplored by the scientific community not only in Russia, but also in America, where this subculture emerged. Such a circumstance makes it possible to outline the main stages of development of the community, as well as to identify how the three novels included in the trilogy influenced the formation of the cypherpunks. The object of the thesis analysis is the cypherpunk subculture as a receptive community that builds its own identity in interaction with the Cyberspace trilogy. The work analyses the receptive relationship between the communicator (William Gibson) and the recipient (the cypherpunks) using the methods of Hans Robert Jauss's receptive aesthetics, and the social basis of such discourse using the methods of Janice Radway's sociology of literature. The study of the influence of ‘Cyberspace’ (among many other factors) on the formation of the philosophy and ideology of cypherpunks is aimed at understanding the mechanisms that create the system of views and the picture of the world inherent in the designated subculture.