Genetic Conversion and Posthumanism in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

Genetic Conversion and Posthumanism in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake PDF Author: Dr. Rima B Soni
Publisher: Booksclinic Publishing
ISBN: 9358231432
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
Genetic Conversion and Posthumanism in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake focuses on a future scenario in which inherited transformation nearly wipes out the human population. Crake, the main character, is a scientist; specialising in genetic changes. He is credited with creating a group of genetically modified creatures known as “the Children of Crake.” These entities embody a state of existence beyond human, challenging conventional concepts of what it means to be the human. The characters’ inherited formation and the variations they endure influence their identity. The selected book emphasizes the concept of authenticity and its implications in a society where inherent alterations are prevalent, prompting reflection on the essence of being human. When people treat the innately altered creatures known as ‘Crakers’ differently due to their unique characteristics, this phenomenon is known as othering.

Genetic Conversion and Posthumanism in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake

Genetic Conversion and Posthumanism in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake PDF Author: Dr. Rima B Soni
Publisher: Booksclinic Publishing
ISBN: 9358231432
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 86

Get Book Here

Book Description
Genetic Conversion and Posthumanism in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake focuses on a future scenario in which inherited transformation nearly wipes out the human population. Crake, the main character, is a scientist; specialising in genetic changes. He is credited with creating a group of genetically modified creatures known as “the Children of Crake.” These entities embody a state of existence beyond human, challenging conventional concepts of what it means to be the human. The characters’ inherited formation and the variations they endure influence their identity. The selected book emphasizes the concept of authenticity and its implications in a society where inherent alterations are prevalent, prompting reflection on the essence of being human. When people treat the innately altered creatures known as ‘Crakers’ differently due to their unique characteristics, this phenomenon is known as othering.

Animal Subjects

Animal Subjects PDF Author: Jodey Castricano
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press
ISBN: 0889205124
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Although Cultural Studies has directed sustained attacks against sexism and racism, the question of the animal has lagged behind developments in broader society with regard to animal suffering in factory farming, product testing, and laboratory experimentation, as well in zoos, rodeos, circuses, and public aquariums. The contributors to Animal Subjects are scholars and writers from diverse perspectives whose work calls into question the boundaries that divide the animal kingdom from humanity, focusing on the medical, biological, cultural, philosophical, and ethical concerns between non-human animals and ourselves. The first of its kind to feature the work of Canadian scholars and writers in this emergent field, this collection aims to include the non-human-animal question as part of the ethical purview of Cultural Studies and to explore the question in interdisciplinary terms.

Writing with Intent

Writing with Intent PDF Author: Margaret Atwood
Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
ISBN: 078671767X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
The first collection of nonfiction work by the author in more than two decades features fifty-seven essays and reviews on a wide range of topics, including John Updike, Toni Morrison, grunge, September 11th, and Gabriel Garca Mrquez, among others. Reprint.

When Species Meet

When Species Meet PDF Author: Donna J. Haraway
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452913536
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
In 2006, about 69 million U.S. households had pets, giving homes to around 73.9 million dogs, 90.5 million cats, and 16.6 million birds, and spending more than 38 billion dollars on companion animals. As never before in history, our pets are truly members of the family. But the notion of “companion species”—knotted from human beings, animals and other organisms, landscapes, and technologies—includes much more than “companion animals.” In When Species Meet, Donna J. Haraway digs into this larger phenomenon to contemplate the interactions of humans with many kinds of critters, especially with those called domestic. At the heart of the book are her experiences in agility training with her dogs Cayenne and Roland, but Haraway’s vision here also encompasses wolves, chickens, cats, baboons, sheep, microorganisms, and whales wearing video cameras. From designer pets to lab animals to trained therapy dogs, she deftly explores philosophical, cultural, and biological aspects of animal–human encounters. In this deeply personal yet intellectually groundbreaking work, Haraway develops the idea of companion species, those who meet and break bread together but not without some indigestion. “A great deal is at stake in such meetings,” she writes, “and outcomes are not guaranteed. There is no assured happy or unhappy ending-socially, ecologically, or scientifically. There is only the chance for getting on together with some grace.” Ultimately, she finds that respect, curiosity, and knowledge spring from animal–human associations and work powerfully against ideas about human exceptionalism.

Biopunk Dystopias

Biopunk Dystopias PDF Author: Lars Schmeink
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1781383766
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Biopunk Dystopias analyses 21st century cultural anxieties and dystopian visions about the consequences of biotechnology, especially genetic engineering, as part of contemporary social reality.

The Ecocriticism Reader

The Ecocriticism Reader PDF Author: Cheryll Glotfelty
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820317816
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
This book is the first collection of its kind, an anthology of classic and cutting-edge writings in the rapidly emerging field of literary ecology. Exploring the relationship between literature and the physical environment, literary ecology is the study of the ways that writing - from novels and folktales to U.S. government reports and corporate advertisements - both reflects and influences our interactions with the natural world.

Ecocriticism on the Edge

Ecocriticism on the Edge PDF Author: Timothy Clark
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474246303
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
The twenty-first century has seen an increased awareness of the forms of environmental destruction that cannot immediately be seen, localised or, by some, even acknowledged. Ecocriticism on the Edge explores the possibility of a new mode of critical practice, one fully engaged with the destructive force of the planetary environmental crisis. Timothy Clark argues that, in literary and cultural criticism, the “Anthropocene”, which names the epoch in which human impacts on the planet's ecological systems reach a dangerous limit, also represents a threshold at which modes of interpretation that once seemed sufficient or progressive become, in this new counterintuitive context, inadequate or even latently destructive. The book includes analyses of literary works, including texts by Paule Marshall, Gary Snyder, Ben Okri, Henry Lawson, Lorrie Moore and Raymond Carver.

Cyberpunk and Visual Culture

Cyberpunk and Visual Culture PDF Author: Graham Murphy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351665154
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
Within the expansive mediascape of the 1980s and 1990s, cyberpunk’s aesthetics took firm root, relying heavily on visual motifs for its near-future splendor saturated in media technologies, both real and fictitious. As today’s realities look increasingly like the futures forecast in science fiction, cyberpunk speaks to our contemporary moment and as a cultural formation dominates our 21st century techno-digital landscapes. The 15 essays gathered in this volume engage the social and cultural changes that define and address the visual language and aesthetic repertoire of cyberpunk – from cybernetic organisms to light, energy, and data flows, from video screens to cityscapes, from the vibrant energy of today’s video games to the visual hues of comic book panels, and more. Cyberpunk and Visual Culture provides critical analysis, close readings, and aesthetic interpretations of exactly those visual elements that define cyberpunk today, moving beyond the limitations of merely printed text to also focus on the meaningfulness of images, forms, and compositions that are the heart and lifeblood of cyberpunk graphic novels, films, television shows, and video games.

The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture

The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture PDF Author: Anna McFarlane
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135113986X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 694

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Book Description
In this companion, an international range of contributors examine the cultural formation of cyberpunk from micro-level analyses of example texts to macro-level debates of movements, providing readers with snapshots of cyberpunk culture and also cyberpunk as culture. With technology seamlessly integrated into our lives and our selves, and social systems veering towards globalization and corporatization, cyberpunk has become a ubiquitous cultural formation that dominates our twenty-first century techno-digital landscapes. The Routledge Companion to Cyberpunk Culture traces cyberpunk through its historical developments as a literary science fiction form to its spread into other media such as comics, film, television, and video games. Moreover, seeing cyberpunk as a general cultural practice, the Companion provides insights into photography, music, fashion, and activism. Cyberpunk, as the chapters presented here argue, is integrated with other critical theoretical tenets of our times, such as posthumanism, the Anthropocene, animality, and empire. And lastly, cyberpunk is a vehicle that lends itself to the rise of new futurisms, occupying a variety of positions in our regionally diverse reality and thus linking, as much as differentiating, our perspectives on a globalized technoscientific world. With original entries that engage cyberpunk’s diverse ‘angles’ and its proliferation in our life worlds, this critical reference will be of significant interest to humanities students and scholars of media, cultural studies, literature, and beyond.

Imagining Extinction

Imagining Extinction PDF Author: Ursula K. Heise
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022635816X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
We are currently facing the sixth mass extinction of species in the history of life on Earth, biologists claim—the first one caused by humans. Heise argues that understanding these stories and symbols is indispensable for any effective advocacy on behalf of endangered species. More than that, she shows how biodiversity conservation, even and especially in its scientific and legal dimensions, is shaped by cultural assumptions about what is valuable in nature and what is not.