Abstract
In contemporary discourse, “the posthuman” describes a being or state of being resulting from the convergence of human and machine. The term may refer to a particular sort of being, whether a genetically engineered or technically enhanced form of human being, a human–machine hybrid, or an artificial intelligence or virtual being. It may also refer to new forms of subjectivity, relationality, or politics, accompanying the dismantling of humanist ideology. This chapter will focus on representations of human enhancement and transgenic evolution in a range of utopian and dystopian texts, with special attention to speculative fictions of Marge Piercy, Octavia Butler, and Margaret Atwood.
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Jacobs, N. (2022). The Posthuman. In: Marks, P., Wagner-Lawlor, J.A., Vieira, F. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88654-7_56
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88654-7_56
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