Towards a Posthuman Imagination in Literature and Media

Towards a Posthuman
Imagination in Literature
and Media

Monsters, Mutants, Aliens, Artificial Beings

Simona Micali

PETER LANG

Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • New York • Wien

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Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National-

bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Micali, Simona, 1972- author.

Title: Towards a posthuman imagination in literature and media : monsters, mutants, aliens, artificial beings / Simona Micali.

Description: Oxford ; New York : Peter Lang, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018057326 | ISBN 9781788745826 (alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Science fiction--History and criticism. | Science fiction films--History and criticism. | Human body in literature. | Human body in motion pictures.

Classification: LCC PN3433.6 .M53 2018 | DDC 809.3/8762--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018057326

Cover image: Cornucopia, photograph, 2013 © Alessandro Bavari. www.alessandrobavari.com.

This book was published thanks to the financial support of the Department of Edu←ii | iii→cation, Human Sciences and Intercultural Communication (University of Siena).

oxford@peterlang.com, www.peterlang.com

Simona Micali has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this Work.

All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.

Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.

This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

About the author

Simona Micali is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Siena. She has published three books (L’innamoramento, 2001; Miti e riti del moderno, 2002; Ascesa e declino dell’Uomo di lusso. Il romanzo dell'intellettuale nella Nuova Italia e i suoi modelli europei, 2008) and several essays on modern and contemporary fiction. In 2016 she organized the international conference on ‘Fictionalising the Posthuman’ (Siena) and edited a special issue of the academic journal Contemporanea on ‘Raccontare il postumano’.

About the book

What if the human species were to get in touch with another intelligent species, thus far unknown?

This question is the impetus for a vast, exciting catalogue of science fiction and fantasy stories. They serve as hypothetical answers in narrative form but can also be regarded as cognitive exercises by which we investigate the nature and destiny of humanity. In other words, any creature and any story produced in response to this question requires an assessment of our notion of the human and a redefinition of our position and role in the world.

This volume aims at mapping and analysing the very rich catalogue of non-human figures which inhabit our contemporary imagery, with particular regard to science fiction literature and film. It is suggested that monsters, clones, zombies, aliens, artificial beings, cyborgs and mutants can function as ideological tools intended to confirm the role of humankind (and Western civilization) as the only possible standard of intelligent and ethical life. But they can also become cognitive instruments devised to question or criticize our vision of and behaviour toward the world, other species and ourselves. This privileged critical perspective – and the point of arrival of the book – is the category of the posthuman, which is regarded as the symbol of a possibly revolutionary vision of humanity, a wish and an invitation to embrace a new, more humble way of being and living.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Meeting the Other, Becoming the Other

Chapter 2

The Subhuman

Chapter 3

The Alien

Chapter 4

The Simulacrum

Chapter 5

The Posthuman

Bibliography

Index←vii | viii→ ←viii | ix→

Illustrations

Figure 1. The March of Progress.

Figure 2. Pilot of the TV series Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry (1964, NBC).

Figure 3. Alien by Ridley Scott (1979, 20th Century Fox – Brandywine Productions).

Figure 4. Movie poster of The Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero (1968, Image Ten).

Figure 5. Starship Troopers by Paul Verhoeven (1997, Touchstone Pictures).

Figure 6. World War Z by Marc Forster (2013, Skydance Media).

Figure 7. Wayward Pines by M. Night Shyamalan (2016, 20th Century Fox), Season 2, Episode 2.

Figure 8. Creature from the Black Lagoon by Jack Arnold (1954, Universal Pictures).

Figure 9. The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro (2017, TSG Entertainment).←ix | x→

Figure 10. The Force Awakens by J. J. Abrams (2015, Lucas Films – Bad Robot).

Figure 11. E.T. by Steven Spielberg (1982, Universal Pictures).

Figure 12. Independence Day by Roland Emmerich (1996, Centropolis Entertainment).

Figure 13. Mars Attacks! by Tim Burton (1996, Tim Burton Productions, Warner Bros).

Figure 14. District 9 by Neill Blomkamp (2009, TriStar Pictures).

Figure 15. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick (1968, Stanley Kubrick Productions).