BIO
Monica Sousa is pursuing a PhD in English at York University in Toronto, Ontario. She is specializing in contemporary literature, and her research focuses on animal studies, posthumanism, and technology in the genres of contemporary speculative fiction. Her research explores human and nonhuman relations in contemporary speculative fiction, with a focus on technologically-altered animals (genetically modified animals or animals with robotic attachments or cybernetic enhancements). She has presented at conference papers on topics of science fiction, animal studies, and posthumanism.
TITLE
“Becoming Animal/Earth/Machine: Posthumanist Empathy in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy”
ABSTRACT
Composed of Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013), Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy investigates the connections between nonhuman animals, the environment, and advanced technology, while exposing their power over humans. The novels explore the end of the Anthropocene where the course of human action has led to the brink of human extinction and allow us to re-evaluate our current and potential relations with nonhuman entities, questioning what it means to become something that goes against an anthropocentric idea of human. Rosi Braidotti’s The Posthuman offers her discussion into what she calls “post-anthropocentrism”, where “the centrality of anthropos is challenged” (65) and where we find an alliance with “life in its nonhuman aspects” (66). Braidotti looks at different perspectives that welcome affirmative transformations of subjectivity: “becoming-animal”, “becoming-earth” and “becoming-machine” (66). The becoming-animal axis focuses on solidarity between different species, the becoming-earth axis emphasizes a focus on ecology and environmental sustainability, and the becoming-machine axis looks at the role that technology (and specifically biotechnology) plays in matters of subjectivity. This paper explores how the MaddAddam trilogy approaches each of these perspectives of becoming, by examining the genetically modified animals, the Crakers, and the environmental collapse. This paper argues that this trilogy welcomes a posthumanist empathy, which insists that anthropocentric habits must be abandoned, and our concern should be less about what it means to be human and more what it means to think beyond the human, regardless of ontological status.
EVENT
NYU Global Posthuman 2020
Monica Sousa is pursuing a PhD in English at York University in Toronto, Ontario. She is specializing in contemporary literature, and her research focuses on animal studies, posthumanism, and technology in the genres of contemporary speculative fiction. Her research explores human and nonhuman relations in contemporary speculative fiction, with a focus on technologically-altered animals (genetically modified animals or animals with robotic attachments or cybernetic enhancements). She has presented at conference papers on topics of science fiction, animal studies, and posthumanism.
TITLE
“Becoming Animal/Earth/Machine: Posthumanist Empathy in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy”
ABSTRACT
Composed of Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013), Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy investigates the connections between nonhuman animals, the environment, and advanced technology, while exposing their power over humans. The novels explore the end of the Anthropocene where the course of human action has led to the brink of human extinction and allow us to re-evaluate our current and potential relations with nonhuman entities, questioning what it means to become something that goes against an anthropocentric idea of human. Rosi Braidotti’s The Posthuman offers her discussion into what she calls “post-anthropocentrism”, where “the centrality of anthropos is challenged” (65) and where we find an alliance with “life in its nonhuman aspects” (66). Braidotti looks at different perspectives that welcome affirmative transformations of subjectivity: “becoming-animal”, “becoming-earth” and “becoming-machine” (66). The becoming-animal axis focuses on solidarity between different species, the becoming-earth axis emphasizes a focus on ecology and environmental sustainability, and the becoming-machine axis looks at the role that technology (and specifically biotechnology) plays in matters of subjectivity. This paper explores how the MaddAddam trilogy approaches each of these perspectives of becoming, by examining the genetically modified animals, the Crakers, and the environmental collapse. This paper argues that this trilogy welcomes a posthumanist empathy, which insists that anthropocentric habits must be abandoned, and our concern should be less about what it means to be human and more what it means to think beyond the human, regardless of ontological status.
EVENT
NYU Global Posthuman 2020
