The Representation of Fukuyama’s Pathways to a Posthuman Future in Brave New World and Never Let Me Go

Bibliographic Data

ID20156711
AuthorsSharareh Kashi (University of Isfahan, Iran, corresponding author), Zahra Jannessari Ladani (0000-0002-2417-5142, University of Isfahan, Iran)
Year2017
Volume33
Issue2
Pages18-34
Publication date2017-04-03
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Literary Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0256-4718 • E-ISSN: 1753-5387
PublisherUnisa Press (PUBLISHER • ZA)
DOI10.1080/02564718.2017.1334861
OpenAlexW2734733486
LanguageEN
References cited7

Dealing with the in-vitro creation of human beings, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932) and Kazuo lshiguro's Never Let Me Go (2005) share the dystopian tradition, holding a catastrophic view of a technocratic society in a future in which humanity is depicted to be in a state of crisis. This article aims to examine the above-mentioned novels in terms of posthumanism, focusing on one of the well-known theorists of this field, Francis Fukuyama, who in Our Posthuman Future treats posthumanism as a threat to humanistic values. Fukuyama warns against a posthuman future in which technology will give us the capacity to modify the essence of human nature gradually, over time. The focus of this article will be on “Factor X”, a concept introduced by Fukuyama, and the ways in which the characters of the novels possess it, or come into its possession. The ways in which Fukuyama's pathways to a posthuman world are realised in the dystopian worlds that Huxley and lshiguro create, are also discussed

Aesthetics · Art · Dystopia · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Human enhancement · Humanity · Literature · Posthuman · Posthumanism · Sociology · Theology · Transhumanism · Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations · Philosophy · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction

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