it is undeniable that the accelerating scientific innovation that we have been undergoing for the past century has permanently reshaped our understanding and views of physical (re)construction and intervention. addressing the gap in research between queer studies, literature, and posthumanist theory can propel these disciplines more firmly towards a collaborative, synergetic vision where queerness keeps the more theoretical aspects of posthumanism anchored to the present, which in turn secures a space for queer bodies in a future.
i will rely on the analysis of mary shelley’s frankenstein especially in the depiction and construction of the creature, as well as t. s. eliot’s the waste land, in regards to the character of tiresias and his heteromorphic body, and lastly clive barker’s jacqueline ess: her will and testament, which allows me to further build on the existing posthumanist feminist theory.
rosi braidotti’s posthuman knowledge (2019) is a foundational part of the theoretical framework behind the project: she grounds posthumanism as a response and consequence to socio-political issues rather than an abstract movement, denouncing late capitalism, systemic inequality, and climate crisis. refusing the cartesian division of mind and body, she places the emphasis on becoming rather than being, defining subjectivity as a fluctuating, relational process.
this aligns with the overarching instability that appears in the main bodies of the three mentioned fictional texts, which disrupt any semblance of rigorous binaries. they are thus categorised not as anomalous, abnormal presences, but as archetypes of the posthuman body. braidotti writes that:
“the posthuman subject relates at the same time to the Earth – land, water, plants, animals, bacteria – and to technological agents – plastic, wires, cells, codes, algorithms.” (51)
humanity is thus reinserted, after a long cultural shift towards anthropocentrism, within the wider context of its surroundings as an integral part of them—though no more or less important than the others. My thesis will firmly distance itself from the notion that the building of a posthuman body comes as a pursuit of perfection or transcendence of humanity, as is the case with much of the transhumanist discourse. Rather, I wish to establish the body as a site of friction, altercation, resistance, and negotiation.
braidotti challenges the technophilic tendencies of transhumanists, discouraging ideals of perfectibility. her theoretical bases can be then used to engage with concerns of progressively hostile or controlled biopolitics.
these regimes are further explored in paul b. preciado’s autotheoretical book, testo junkie (2008). He rethinks the body as the site of a political, performative, and pharmaceutical protest, viewing his Hormone therapy reassignment process as an act of self-hacking, exposing the interconnected nature of capitalism and pharmacopornographic industries—a term he coined himself. These authorities, he argues, regulate bodily sexualities and identities as an easy way of maintaining control over the population, capitalising on the potentia gaudendi.
his approach to the topic of biopolitics allows me to expand upon the issues of control and bodily authority in the context of the selected fiction texts: frankenstein targets social anxieties regarding authorship over physical forms; the waste land‘s tiresias is framed as a forever in-between creature that confuses preconceptions of gender role and performance; and lastly jacqueline ess and her forced modification of male bodies act as an act of protest and rejection of a patriarchal, capitalist society.
preciado does not portray his changes, documented in the body-essay, as purely positive or negative: they are liberatory in that they allow for socio-political resistance, which grounds my posthumanist approach in queer and transgender realities that are inevitably and inextricably linked to a continuous fight for the power of self-definition.
corporeality becomes the central focus of posthuman tensions, a topic that is expanded in jack halberstam and ira livingston’s posthuman bodies (1995). a pioneering approach to the physicality of non-normative bodies as contended grounds of identity inversion and subversion.
this is especially pertinent to my analysis of tiresias as a figure containing multiple identities and experiences: more than his mere fluid approach to gender, he embodies a posthuman archive, a walking memory of past, present, and all possible futures. his body is changed not by science but by divinity, yet his flesh is warped by age and mortality that is forever in progress.
tracing how we can socially and technologically construct a body, halberstam and livingston’s anthology resonates with a cyborg manifesto (1985), the innovative essay by donna haraway that cemented the feminist branch of posthumanist studies, politicising the cyborg as a figure of complete destabilisation of boundaries between male and female, human and machine, natural and artificial.
the cyborg as a posthuman body, much like frankenstein’s creature, is the result of a collage or patchwork, an assemblage of parts that end up caught somewhere between subject and object, alienated from society and rejected by their creator. haraway writes that:
The main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential. (151)
these four texts constitute the backbone of my research: i will rely on them for my thesis not only as theoretical bases, but as methodological stimulations to think and write with—and through—the body. each of the figures in my analysis is engaged in a constant struggle for recognition and survival in a system that is misshapen to fit around their rebuilt bodies: it is the focus of this thesis to defend a space for them to exist as the prototype of what could come after the “human”.
sources:
Braidotti, Rosi. Posthuman Knowledge. Polity press, 2019.
Halberstam, Jack, and Livingston, Ira. Posthuman Bodies. Indiana University Press, 2010.
Haraway, Donna. ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century’. The International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments, edited by Joel Weiss et al., Springer Netherlands, 2006, pp. 149–81. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-3803-7_4.
Preciado, Paul B. Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era. Translated by Bruce Benderson, The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2013.
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