Difference, identification, evolution: posthumanism as paradigmatic shift in contemporary speculative fiction
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Date
2013-06-21
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Towson University. Department of Humanities
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There are no restrictions on access to this document. An internet release form signed by the author to display this document online is on file with Towson University Special Collections and Archives.
There are no restrictions on access to this document. An internet release form signed by the author to display this document online is on file with Towson University Special Collections and Archives.
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Abstract
This study is an initial attempt to investigate the ways that posthumanism manifests within three works of contemporary speculative fiction: Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake (2010), Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (2005) and Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2 (1995). Posthumanism seeks to overturn the assumptions of liberal humanism, which places "the human" as the central, most important, and possibly only ethical subject in order to recognize inhuman beings-whether they be animal, clone, or artificial intelligence-as legitimate ethical subjects. At the same time, it recognizes that human beings and technology are intimately bound together. Therefore, it is impossible to "escape" the human through technological culture (as transhumanism might suggest) or to "return to nature" by eschewing technology and culture altogether. Each of these three works addresses these posthumanist assertions, employing various narrative techniques to reinforce both the ethical status of non-humans and the embedded nature of human technological culture.