|
|
Article: Imagining the post-human: recent books by Kazuo Ishiguro and Michel Houellebecq offer guides of sorts to the post-human.(Cooper's Last)(Critical essay)
- Article from:
- Arena Magazine
- Article date:
- February 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Arena Printing and Publications Pty. Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
The promise of a biotechnological future driven by practices such as cloning and organ transplantation increasingly forms part of our cultural landscape. Outside the realm of science, these practices supply new themes for genre fiction (SF and horror) or the visual arts. Figures such as Patricia Piccinini create unease by fusing the familiar and the grotesque. Strong on horror and visceral impact, weak on narrative and existential questioning, these works seem less able to engage with the politics of being post-human, or even to ask what kind of society desires a world where cloning and organ harvesting are the norm. Here we might turn to narrative fiction to see if it can ...