Hosting Humans: A Theory of the Posthuman Bildungsroman
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Using as a template Octavia Butler’s story, “Bloodchild,” where aliens host a group of humans on the condition that the latter host their eggs, this essay attempts to develop a theory of the posthuman Bildungsroman, a proper literary genre that envisions, to borrow from Franco Moretti’s theory of the classical Bildungsroman, “a new realm of existence in which those abstract and deforming forces penetrates less violently, and can be reconstituted in syntony with the individual aspiration toward harmony.” In order to appreciate this “new realm” as genuinely new, the essay keeps distance from the analogical tradition of science fiction criticism and “the critical of the future” in utopian studies, with which Butler’s story is often associated, and focuses on the new living condition in which humans are in the story. That is, far from what is promised in the classical Bildungsroman, Butler’s story has humans in a place where they, no matter how well they compromise with the alien world, will never be hosts of that world. The best a human can be in the story is to become a legitimate guest by hosting the hosting aliens’ eggs. The theory of the posthuman Bildungsroman that this essay teases out by reading Butler’s story thus draws upon the ironic and complex relationship between humans and nonhumans, in which, to quote Jacques Derrida, “The guest becomes the host’s host.” Humans thus make the ethical gesture of hospitality toward nonhumans not as a generous expression of their power to dominate and control nonhumans but as a plea for nonhumans’ reciprocating hospitality that allows humans to survive and live in the alien world. Enacting this radical reshuffling of the relationship between humans and nonhumans, the posthuman Bildungsroman will narrate how humans grow up as legitimate guests in the posthuman world.
Abstract
Using as a template Octavia Butler’s story, “Bloodchild,” where aliens host a group of humans on the condition that the latter host their eggs, this essay attempts to develop a theory of the posthuman Bildungsroman, a proper literary genre that envisions, to borrow from Franco Moretti’s theory of the classical Bildungsroman, “a new realm of existence in which those abstract and deforming forces penetrates less violently, and can be reconstituted in syntony with the individual aspiration toward harmony.” In order to appreciate this “new realm” as genuinely new, the essay keeps distance from the analogical tradition of science fiction criticism and “the critical of the future” in utopian studies, with which Butler’s story is often associated, and focuses on the new living condition in which humans are in the story. That is, far from what is promised in the classical Bildungsroman, Butler’s story has humans in a place where they, no matter how well they compromise with the alien world, will never be hosts of that world. The best a human can be in the story is to become a legitimate guest by hosting the hosting aliens’ eggs. The theory of the posthuman Bildungsroman that this essay teases out by reading Butler’s story thus draws upon the ironic and complex relationship between humans and nonhumans, in which, to quote Jacques Derrida, “The guest becomes the host’s host.” Humans thus make the ethical gesture of hospitality toward nonhumans not as a generous expression of their power to dominate and control nonhumans but as a plea for nonhumans’ reciprocating hospitality that allows humans to survive and live in the alien world. Enacting this radical reshuffling of the relationship between humans and nonhumans, the posthuman Bildungsroman will narrate how humans grow up as legitimate guests in the posthuman world.
참고문헌 (23)
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