Prophets of the Posthuman: American Fiction, Biotechnology, and the Ethics of Personhood

Contents

Contents Acknowledgments ix Preface: Only Evolve! Bioethics and the Need for Narrative xi Introduction: Learning to Love in a Posthuman World 1 Part I. Posthuman Vision 1. The Moral Imagination in Exile: Flannery O’Connor 27 and Lee Silver at the Circus 2. Aylmer’s Moral Infancy: Nathaniel Hawthorne and 43 the Quest for Human Perfection Part II. Posthuman Bodies 3. The Faces of Others: George Saunders, James Tiptree Jr., 63 and the Body for Sale 4. The Scorned People of the Earth: Reprogenetics 85 and The Bluest Eye viii Contents Part III. Posthuman Language 5. What Makes a Crake? The Reign of Technique and 109 the Degradation of Language in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake 6. I Love Humanity, but I Don’t Like You: Walker Percy’s 131 The Thanatos Syndrome and the Soul of Scientism Part IV. From Posthuman Individuals to Human Persons 7. Technology, Contingency, and Grace: 153 Raymond Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing” 8. The Lure of Transhumanism versus the Balm in Gilead: 168 Marilynne Robinson’s Redemptive Alternative Notes 190 Bibliography 222 Index 233 ...