The Emergence of the Ideal Posthuman in the Xenogenesis Trilogy
Open Access
Author:
Hadsell, Lili Q
Area of Honors:
Interdisciplinary in English and Women's Studies
Degree:
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Dr. Jennifer Ann Wagner-Lawlor, Thesis Supervisor Dr. Jennifer Ann Wagner-Lawlor, Thesis Honors Advisor Mindy L Boffemmyer, Faculty Reader Lisa Ruth Sternlieb, Thesis Honors Advisor
Octavia Butler’s XENOGENESIS trilogy utilizes traditional discourses of racism, colonization, and sexism to promote an image of inevitable posthumanism. The exploration of the Human Contradiction in the first two novels involves the definition and redefinition of humanity. The third novel demonstrates that a posthuman cyborg is presented as a more peaceful solution to the binary opposition that requires a physical, moral, and cultural evolution of humanity to a state of posthumanism. This thesis examines the trilogy through a feminist lens and illustrates how the interaction of the traditional discourses resolves itself in a promotion of a mediated solution of posthumanism.
