Rethinking 'the Human' in Dystopian Times

Modified Bodies and the Re-/Deconstruction of Human Exceptionalism in Margaret Atwood's "MaddAddam" Trilogy and Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go"
Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-3-86821-753-7
Verlag: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier

Buch, Englisch, Band 43, 322 Seiten, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 511 g

Reihe: SALS

At least since the turn of the 21st century, dystopian fiction flourishes once again. Contemporary narratives often ponder the threat posed by hierarchies and humanist concepts and critically reflect on an ideology which has to be overcome in times of rapid (biotechnological) progress, political instability, the loss of species diversity, the widening gap between rich and poor, climate change, glocal (ecological) crises, a crisis of ‘the human’ and similar challenges. Through their engagement with critical posthumanism and the imaginative creation of posthuman beings that defy clear-cut boundaries, biotechnological dystopias often facilitate a less discriminatory world view by revealing and questioning the ideologically motivated amalgamation of non/post/human bodies not conceded personhood. Situated at the intersection point of biotechnological, philosophical, (bio)ethical, literary and cultural discourses, Rethinking ‘the Human’ in Dystopian Times argues for a politics of inclusion and discloses how new viewpoints springing from dystopian extrapolations can allow for a more critical view on human exceptionalism. Alessandra Boller points out how especially Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go challenge the ethics of an established (western) human value system, intertwined demarcation strategies based on race, class, gender or species, and the humanist concept of ‘the human.’

Autoren/Hrsg.

Boller, Alessandra

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Table of Contents 1 Dystopian Fiction – a Flourishing Genre and Its Potentials        1 1.1 Dystopian Texts and Motifs        1 1.2 Between Constructed Stability and Subversive Deconstruction: Varieties of Non/Post/Human Bodies        6 1.3 Outline and Objectives        17 2 Definitions and Surveys of Utopian, Dystopian and (Post-)Apocalyptic Fiction        23 2.1 Defining Utopia and Dystopia        23 2.2 Defining Apocalypse        25 2.3 A Concise Survey of Utopian and Dystopian Fiction        26 3 Body Discourses, Demarcation Strategies and the Regulation of the Human Body        39 3.1 Normativity, Normalism and the Normal Ideal        42 3.2 Exceptional, Deviant and Dangerous Human Bodies        45 3.3 Technologies of Power        54 3.4 The Normal and the Pathological        58 3.5 Problematising the Stable Western Body        61 4 Human Exceptionalism, Its Strategies and Its Challenges        67 4.1 Human Exceptionalism and ‘the Animal’        68 4.2 New Bodies Challenging ‘the Human’        82        4.2.1 Genetic Engineering and Its Media Coverage        85        4.2.2 Organ Transplantation, Eugenic Cloning and Dystopian Extrapolations        90        4.2.3 The (Post)Human and Unstable Bodies, Blurred Boundaries and Symbolic Meanings        94 4.3 (Bio)Ethics, Sympathy and Personhood        100        4.3.1 Ethics and Bioethics        101        4.3.2 Sympathy and Forms of Speciesism        104        4.3.3 Concepts of Personhood        110 5 The Body Modified and Its Implications in Eugenic, Biopolitical and Biotechnological Dystopian Fiction        114 5.1 Eugenics and Dystopia        114 5.2 Human/Animal Splices in Margaret Atwood’s Speculative MaddAddam Trilogy        121        5.2.1 The Segregated Society, Biotechnology and the Consumer Cult of the Body        124        5.2.1.1 Rule, Science! A Segregated World Controlled and Created by Genetic Engineers        126        5.2.1.2 The Body as Capitalist Consumer Object        136        5.2.2 Dangerous Bodies and the Man-Made Apocalypse        148        5.2.2.1 The Anthropocene and Negative Human Exceptionalism        149        5.2.2.2 The Apocalyptic Waterless Flood and Its (Human) Survivors’ Coping Strategies        156        5.2.2.3 Atwood’s Ambiguous Updating of the ‘Reckless Scientist’        161        5.2.3 Human/Animal Splices and the Redistribution of Human Properties        164        5.2.3.1 Inverting Monstrosity        165        5.2.3.2 Human/Animal Splices and Human/Posthuman Interaction        170        5.2.3.3 The Difficult Implementation of Inter- and Intraspecies Demarcation Strategies        180        5.2.3.4 Religion and Mythmaking, Language and Culture, Death and Mourning        193        5.2.4 Interim Conclusion: Margaret Atwood’s Ustopian Reassessment of ‘the Human’        205 5.3 The Clone in Literature and Media        210 5.4 Clone Bodies in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go        215        5.4.1 The Clones’ Education and the Establishment of Demarcation Strategies        216        5.4.1.1 Heterotopias, Dystopian and Utopian Elements        218        5.4.1.2 Difference and Dichotomies        224        5.4.2 Normalising Practices, Biopower, Eugenics and Discrimination        233        5.4.2.1 The Donation Programme and the ‘Humane Movement’        233        5.4.2.2 The Maintenance of the Individual Body and the Body of the Population        237        5.4.2.3 Threatened (Bodily) Boundaries        243        5.4.3 Is the Clone More Human/e Than ‘the Human’?        247        5.4.3.1 Mechanistic Views of the Clone Body        248        5.4.3.2 A Reconsideration of the Clone’s Status of Personhood        251        5.4.3.3 Intertextuality, the Narrative Situation and (Euphemistic) Language        258        5.4.4 Mark Romanek’s Film Adaptation Never Let Me Go (2010)        272        5.4.5 Interim Conclusion:        The Unmasking of Arbitrary Demarcation Strategies and the Lack of (Post)Human Discontent        280 6 Conclusion        286 6.1 Overall Findings        286 6.2 Challenged Ideologies        289 7 Bibliography        300