The Posthuman Community In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Science Fictions

With the successive publication of two science fictions: Never Let Me Go and Clara and the Sun,Kazuo Ishiguro expressed to the world his visions and attitudes towards the posthuman era.Inspired by the posthumanist theories proposed by scholars such as Katherine Hayles,Donna Haraway,Rosi Braidotti,and the theory of liquid modernity and community proposed by Zygmunt Bauman,this thesis analyses the key issues concerning the construction of the posthuman community explored in the two fictions,including the ethical dilemmas faced by the human and non-human characters,the disintegration of the existing social connections,and the urgency of developing the posthuman ethics and the posthuman awareness.Having portrayed two groups of non-human characters,machines with artificial intelligence which is the result of computer science and human clones which are produced with the development of biological science,in his two science fictions,Ishiguro intrigues us to conduct an in-depth exploration of the problems and opportunities come with the development of science and technology.The intrusion of technology has resulted in the fragmentation of the traditional human body and the appearance of the new body,which,as the products of technology,starts to question their own existence,and thus falls into the existential dilemma.In order to highlight their dominant position,the dominant human group has drawn a series of boundaries,which have led non-human beings into a series of ethical dilemmas,such as bioethics,responsibility ethics,and identity ethics.Meanwhile,the development of technology has created a “fluidity” in society,exacerbating the disintegration of the existing social structure.When the traditional boundaries between humans and non-human beings are blurred,both of them are afflicted by a strong sense of displacement and alienation.However,in the contact and communication between human and non-human beings,both sides learn to re-negotiate the traditional boundaries and to re-establish their identity coordinates.When the arrogant and paranoid anthropocentrism is dispelled,the possibility of building up a posthuman community emerges.To construct a posthuman community,it is essential for the human beings to be aware that their existence is an amalgam one in the posthuman era,inseparable from the existence of beings created by science and technology,and thus learn to be empathetic to the welfare of the other beings...