Several Exceptional Forms of Primates”

The ape has long held an ambiguous position in the Euro-Western scientific and cultural imaginary. A creature “betwixt and between” a human-like selfhood and the terrain of animality, the ape has consistently been drawn into socioscientific anxieties and debates surrounding what constitutes “being human.” Sf cinema is built on notions of the human always under threat from the amorphous or anthropomorphic others of alternate technocultural realities. In this paper I argue that the presence of the ape in science fiction cinema, however, evokes a long-standing narrative of an ontological humanness under threat from the animality both outside and within itself

Art · Art history · Biology · Movie theater · Simian · Virus · Digital Media and Philosophy · German Colonialism and Identity Studies · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Virology

• A Radical Monopoly on Sapience

  Meghan Kuckelman•Science Fiction Studies•2025

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