中文摘要 |
In most sci-fi narrations, we find that the inventions of posthuman bodies originated from our intention to produce better bodies, i.e., such that can help us move towards a utopian future in which everyone is healthy and normal. Nevertheless, the so-called ''healthy'' and ''normal'' future is very problematic since it may lead us down to a path that constantly challenges our conception of what a ''normal'' body is, producing stricter and higher standards of normality. Our intention to (re)shape our bodies comes from the practical need to aid those who are disabled to regain the functions of their dysfunctional or missing organs and limbs. This intention inspires us to plumb the possibilities of modifying the human body, making it stronger and more powerful by means of technological enhancements. To counter some overoptimistic views of posthumanity, it is argued in this paper that we need to re-think the issue from the perspective of ''the strangers in the body,'' in Jean-Luc Nancy's words. Nancy's ''The Intruder'' in Corpus can be read as a dialogue with Donna Haraway's ''A Manifesto for Cyborgs'' in view of our desire to cross the boundary between death and life. Rubert Sanders' version of Ghost in the Shell and Peter F. Hamilton's Great North Road best illustrate to us the strangeness emerging from the process of our becoming posthuman bodies and the possible scenarios of posthuman societies. Via the image of a suffering cyborg, the movie Ghost in the Shell presents to us the crucial issue: how one suffers from resistance, competition, and the connection of multiple forces inside one's body during the process of becoming a cyborg. In Great North Road, Hamilton offers us three scenarios of possible posthuman worlds by imagining a prolongation of human life to fulfill the human desire to achieve the state of immortality. |