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Biopunk Dystopias

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Biopunk Dystopias BIOPUNK DYSTOPIAS Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies, 56 Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies Editor David Seed, University of Liverpool Editorial Board Mark Bould, University of the West of England Veronica Hollinger, Trent University Rob Latham, University of California Roger Luckhurst, Birkbeck College, University of London Patrick Parrinder, University of Reading Andy Sawyer, University of Liverpool Recent titles in the series 32. Robert Philmus Visions and Revisions: (Re)constructing Science Fiction 33. Gene Wolfe (edited and introduced by Peter Wright) Shadows of the New Sun: Wolfe on Writing/Writers on Wolfe 34. Mike Ashley Gateways to Forever: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazine from 1970–1980 35. Patricia Kerslake Science Fiction and Empire 36. Keith Williams H. G. Wells, Modernity and the Movies 37. Wendy Gay Pearson, Veronica Hollinger and Joan Gordon (eds.) Queer Universes: Sexualities and Science Fiction 38. John Wyndham (eds. David Ketterer and Andy Sawyer) Plan for Chaos 39. Sherryl Vint Animal Alterity: Science Fiction and the Question of the Animal 40. Paul Williams Race, Ethnicity and Nuclear War: Representations of Nuclear Weapons and Post-Apocalyptic Worlds 41. Sara Wasson and Emily Alder, Gothic Science Fiction 1980–2010 42. David Seed (ed.), Future Wars: The Anticipations and the Fears 43. Andrew M. Butler, Solar Flares: Science Fiction in the 1970s 44. Andrew Milner, Locating Science Fiction 45. Joshua Raulerson, Singularities 46. Stanislaw Lem: Selected Letters to Michael Kandel (edited, translated and with an introduction by Peter Swirski) 47. Sonja Fritzsche, The Liverpool Companion to World Science Fiction Film 48. Jack Fennel: Irish Science Fiction 49. Peter Swirski and Waclaw M. Osadnik: Lemography: Stanislaw Lem in the Eyes of the World 50. Gavin Parkinson (ed.), Surrealism, Science Fiction and Comics 51. Peter Swirski, Stanislaw Lem: Philosopher of the Future 52. J. P. Telotte and Gerald Duchovnay, Science Fiction Double Feature: The Science Fiction Film as Cult Text 53. Tom Shippey, Hard Reading: Learning from Science Fiction 54. Mike Ashley, Science Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1981 to 1990 55. Chris Pak, Terraforming: Ecopolitical Transformations and Environmentalism in Science Fiction BIOPUNK DYSTOPIAS Genetic Engineering, Society, and Science Fiction LARS SchmeINK LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS First published 2016 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2016 Lars Schmeink The right of Lars Schmeink to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available print ISBN 978-1-78138-376-6 cased epdf ISBN 978-1-78138-332-2 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Contents Contents Acknowledgements vii 1. Introduction 1 2. Dystopia, Science Fiction, Posthumanism, and Liquid Modernity 18 3. The Anthropocene, the Posthuman, and the Animal 71 4. Science, Family, and the Monstrous Progeny 119 5. Individuality, Choice, and Genetic Manipulation 146 6. The Utopian, the Dystopian, and the Heroic Deeds of One 179 7. 9/11 and the Wasted Lives of Posthuman Zombies 200 8. Conclusion 237 Works Cited 247 Index 266 v Acknowledgements Acknowledgements This project was made possible by the Gesellschaft für Kanadastudien (GKS) and the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD), both of which provided grants in generous support of my dissertation research at the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation & Fantasy and York University in Toronto, Canada, between August 2009 and April 2010. Without them, this project might not have been realized. Some of the chapters presented here are alternative, extended, or edited versions of existing material: The short ‘biopunk’ definition in chapter 2 has been extracted from a longer, earlier draft of that chapter, which has been accepted for publication in SFRA Review as ‘Biopunk 101’ (309 [2014]: 31–36). Some of my thoughts on Splice (chapter 4) have been published as ‘Frankenstein’s Offspring: Practicing Science and Parenthood in Natali’s Splice,’ Science Fiction Film & Television (8.3 [2015]: 343–69). And lastly, an alternative, shortened version of chapter 5 will be published in the forthcoming The World of Bioshock, an anthology edited by Sven Dwulecki and Krzysztof M. Maj (Facta Ficta, 2016). Further, I would like to thank my dissertation advisor Martin Klepper of the Humboldt University Berlin, whose support and patience have never dwindled over the course of this project. My gratitude also goes to Susanne Rohr, who has been so kind as to provide a professional home and endless support in questions of career advancement; to Allan Weiss, whose scholarly guidance, support, and feedback have turned into a personal friendship that spans an ocean; to Hans-Harald Müller and Astrid Böger, who have been willing co-conspirators in the inauguration of the Gesellschaft für Fantastikforschung (GFF) and thus are at the center of my network of ‘fantastic’ support, feedback, and critique; to the executive committee and the members of the GFF, who showed me that I was not alone in German academia with this kind of research, especially to Ingrid Tomkowiak, who agreed to be second assessor of vii viii BIOPUNK DYSTOPIAS this thesis; to the members of the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA), International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts (IAFA), Society for Utopian Studies (SUS), and its European sister, the Utopian Studies Society (USS), for granting me the initial feeling of not being a freak when being a nerd at an academic conference. And of course, my deepest thanks go to all of my colleagues and friends, whom I have pestered first with my ideas and later with chapters of this book to proofread, to cross-examine, and to discuss in many an untimely hour, especially Sherryl Vint, Mark Bould, Jacek Rzeszotnik, Steffen Hantke, Daniel Illger, Pawel Frelik, Ritch Calvin, Georg Hach, and Steven Wosniack. Finally, the completion of this project would not have been possible without my wife Julia, who not only kept me sane, supported me tirelessly, and helped me untangle the knots in my head, but also provided valuable feedback and many a professional insight, and was always the first and last to read a manuscript. 1 Introduction Introduction These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilisations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides. (Haldane 45) In 1923 the famed genetics professor J.B.S. Haldane, demonstrating a penchant for provocation and prophecy, gave a talk on the future of science, claiming that scientific research would flourish in the years to come and that he would make no prophecies rasher than those made by H.G. Wells in his works (26). One very important aspect of science, to Haldane, had been left out of Wells’s imaginary due to the shifting scientific interests of different times, and that was the development of the biological sciences. Physics and chemistry, with their ‘scientific ideas [… of] flying and radiotelegraphy,’ were, by 1923, merely ‘commercial problems’ whereas, he believed, the future ‘centre of scientific interest [lay] in biology’ (26). Some of his prophecies were radical, but proved quite accurate. Haldane was the first to foresee the necessary shift in energy production, from coal and oil to wind and sunlight, and proposed hydrogen-powered machinery (30). In regard to biology, his claims were the most outrageous and garnered the strongest opposition at the time. In a science-fictional essay, supposedly to be read by an under graduate student of Cambridge University in 2073, on the development of biology in the twentieth century, he claimed, among other things, the birth of the first test-tube baby and genetic selection (41). His account was rather optimistic, both in terms of time frame (positing 1951 as the birth date of the first child by in vitro fertilization, whereas in reality it took until 1977) and in terms of its potential to alter the species and offer ‘great possibilities in the way of the direct improvement of the individual’ (43). What is even more interesting than his claim about the importance of biological scientific progress, genetics in particular, is his claim that 1 2 BIOPUNK DYSTOPIAS the inevitable human reaction towards it is repulsion. Drawing on the Greek mythological figures of Prometheus and Daedalus, Haldane argues, The chemical or physical inventor is always a Prometheus. There is no great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god. But if every physical and chemical invention is a blasphemy, every biological invention is a perversion. There is hardly one which […] would not appear […] as indecent and unnatural. (36) Whereas Prometheus would be subject to the revenge of the gods, Daedalus – for his biological creation of the Minotaur – would go unpunished by Zeus and Poseidon: The biologist ‘is not concerned with gods’ (37). Instead, Haldane claims, the biologist is faced with ‘the universal and agelong reprobation of a humanity to whom biological inventions are abhorrent’ (37). The physicist threatens divine power in order to claim it for humanity, becoming in stature a god himself (or a Titan, as Prometheus) and by his creation in effect granting humanity its superior status, whereas the biologist (especially the geneticist) threatens humanity, robbing it of its natural place, and is thus seen as a threat to and corruption of the human claim to godliness. Prometheus stole fire from the gods, bringing the light of progress to humanity and securing for himself a token position in the mythology of humankind, whereas Daedalus’s inventions served as warnings that technology never quite turned out for the good and always demanded a price that was too high to pay – the youths of Athens sacrificed to the Minotaur.
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