| This thesis examines the relationship between science fiction and animal studies. I investigate what many thinkers have termed "the question of the animal," and present Descartes and Derrida as the respective constructors and deconstructors of a particular iteration of the human/animal boundary. I examine how science fiction is uniquely positioned to critique and estrange this boundary, and the ontological categories of the "human" and "animal." Next I examine how animals in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) are commodified in order to reaffirm humanity's self-worth. I also argue that the cultural logic which produces this system is specifically Cartesian, and examine whether or not a non-Cartesian view of animals can be enacted. Finally I examine species discourse and the discursive animalization of humans in Octavia Butler's Mind of My Mind (1977) and Wild Seed (1980). I argue that Butler examines Cartesian dualism and the issues of consuming animals and "becoming animal" in manners similar to Derrida and Deleuze and Guattari, respectively.;Keywords: science fiction, animal studies, critical theory, dualism, Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, Rene Descartes, Jacques Derrida, Donna Haraway, Cary Wolfe, Darko Suvin, Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari. |
