Biotech Animals, Ethics, and Care Approaches in Contemporary Science Fiction

Biotech Animals, Ethics, and Care Approaches in Contemporary Science Fiction contributes to the growing body of works focused on animal studies and science fiction by exploring its connections with biotechnological practices and an animal ethics of care theoretical framework. With a focus on what I choose to call “biotech animals” (which may include animals genetically engineered/modified or animal cyborgs with robotic/cybernetic bodily attachments or enhancements), I explore how contemporary science fiction represents the ethical treatment of these altered animals, particularly after their creation. By tracing out these discussions, I examine how my contemporary focal texts reveal the capacities of the reader/audience to question what caring relations between humans and biotech animals could look like if humans acknowledged both their responsibility and their obligation towards their creations. The analytical chapters of my dissertation examine Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy (2003-2013), Bong Joon-ho’s Okja (2017), Kirstin’s Bakis’s Lives of the Monster Dogs (1997), Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s We3 (2004), Pat Murphy’s “Rachel in Love” (1987), Emma Geen’s The Many Selves of Katherine North (2016), Dean Koontz’s Watchers (1987), and Jeff Vandermeer’s Borne (2017). There are key questions that shape my analysis. What does care look like when applied to biotech animals? How do these texts depict, in various ways, processes that do not suggest a caring framework? In what scenarios are they complicated? Additionally, my dissertation explores the influential role of science fiction in demonstrating that the way we relate to caring relations are often easily affected by biocapitalism and other similar forms of human control. In doing so, my dissertation also draws attention to how these fictional works can draw attention to alternate ways of relating to biotech animals that subvert anthropocentrism while still holding on to core care values, suggesting a need to consider a philosophical posthumanism mindset that removes the human from the center of all ethical consideration.