ACLA 2006 Annual Meeting: The Human and Its Others

Biotechnology, a technological corollary of molecular biology and the Human Genome Project, is continually redefining what it means to be human in the context of the natural world. Genetic engineering is producing animal clones, enhancing human traits and even creating new species. However, unresolved questions remain as to how these novel constructs will affect the idea of the human and its relationship with them. Papers that address insights into the “othering” mechanisms of biotechnology generated in the realm of literature are especially welcome. From Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow to Butler’s Dawn, the effects of technology on human subjectivity in the postmodern era are brought to light in fictional manner. The themes of these novels resonate with readers on how the human has been shaped by science. This seminar is devoted to coming up with new understandings of humanity in the face of novel biotechnologies that seem directed at dominating nature rather than evoking new paradigms in which we as humans can live more congruently with the ecosystem. In this postmodern era of technology evolving at lightening speed, it is ever more imperative that society can conceive of biotechnology through the lens of narrative fiction.

Friday, March 24

Maria Ferreira, University of Averio, Portugal
“(IM)Possible Futures? Geneticization and Its Discontents in Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and Houellebecq’s Possibility of an Island”
Brandon Granier, Dartmouth College
“‘A dive into the plasma pool’: Biological Metamorphosis and the Postmodern Media Industry in Cronenberg’s The Fly”
Naomi Matsuoka, Nihon University, College of International Relations
“Brain, Clone and Soul in Haruki Murakami and Kazuo Ishiguro”
Tim Otter, Albertson College of Idaho
“Genes, Beings and in-Between”

Saturday, March 25

Robin Anderson, Simmons College
“Technology and the Body: Cyborgs in our Imagination”
Adam Robinson, University of Victoria, Canada
“The Unconscious Effects of Information Technology as Today’s Dominant Ideology”
Susan Smith, University of Leicester, UK
“CITs, AZIs and PRs: Cybernetics and Genetic Engineering in C.J. Cherryh’s ‘Cyteen’”
Gulshan Taneja, University of Delhi, India
“Bodies, cyber-bodies and the body snatchers: The Human and Its others,”