Interventions and Alterations. Crossing Species Boundaries in Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood and Avatar

Le Comparatisme comme approche critique. Comparative Literature as a Critical Approach. Tome 6

Classiques Garnier

Lugar: París; Año: 2018; p. 265 - 281

Interventions and Alterations: Crossing Species? Boundaries in Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2010) and Avatar (2009).After the end of the exploration of new geographical frontiers, man?s adventurous and restless mind has set to cross qualitative ones or to redraw the territory inside his own body as much as the boundaries between the human and the non-human world. This is the particular case of some futuristic cultural texts in this last decade and the conflicts they explore. Margaret Atwood?s novels, Oryx and Crake (2003) and The Year of the Flood (2010), and James Cameron´s film, Avatar (2009), all of them associated with the science fiction genre, raise controversial issues concerning the alteration of the traditional boundaries between the human species and the natural kingdom and even the boundaries within the human species. This work intends to examine the remapping of those boundaries, the contrasting positions between these texts and within the texts themselves depending on the different characters? outlooks which range from quite anthropocentric to more bio or ecocentric ones. This spectrum, which includes the ecocentric and the ecologically unconcerned standing, will be related to the distinct religious, military, technological and scientific discourses that inform these works. Prominent among the latter there will emerge the discussion on Darwinian theory, genetic engineering, the posthuman and the transcorporeal.Professor Mirian Carballo PhD. in Modern LiteratureUniversity of Córdoba, Argentinaprofmirian2003@yahoo.com.ar