CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Cettl, Franciska |
|---|---|
| Title | Mapping Human-Nonhuman Biopolitics in Classic Gothic Science Fiction |
| Summary | In this thesis I look at the ways in which the early, 19th century Gothic science fiction novels by Mary Shelley and H.G. Wells set up a framework for staging and interrogating the human. I argue that the classic Gothic science fiction sets up key cultural scenarios of biopolitical relations between the human and the nonhuman: predominantly positing and affirming the human against various nonhuman threats, but also allowing for critiques of human exceptionalism to surface. These critiques raise issues around the treatment of nonhuman animals, the relationship with the environment, and the uses of technology, and when approached through the intersection of posthumanist/en vironmental/ani mal studies, they are seen to fall back on certain humanist assumptions. I identify five key scenarios through which the human-nonhuman biopolitics of the classic Gothic sci-fi is staged (and which persist to unfold in contemporary cultural imagination): technological creation of the non/human, wonder/terror/horror at the nonhuman, alienation from (human) nature, disastrous extinction of the human species, and biological invasions of the human self. |
| Supervisor | Timar, Eszter |
| Department | Gender Studies PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/cettl_franciska.pdf |
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