케이트 윌헬름의 『노래하던 새들도 지금은 사라지고』에 나타난 생명 기술-진화 양상

초록

This study analyzes Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm to reflect on the dominant species’ reaction to the minorities of the society. This novel begins with the last generation of mankind creating clones to prevent their own extinction only to see that their clones become dominant. Accordingly, human society evolves into a cloned human society, which in turn evolves into a hybrid society of humans and clones, evolving solely on technology in a barren world where biological evolution has become impossible. The nature of humanity in itself is the topic of this study. The human community distinguishes non-human from human on the basis of humanity and tends to react negatively to non-humans, considering that the alien factors would threaten their society. Likewise, clones exclude humans when they become dominant, regarding humans as backward creatures. As a political philosopher, Roberto Esposito, insists, the communities respond to foreign material in the same way as the immune system does to a disease or contamination, which can result in autoimmunity that attacks the body and the society. However, what appears to be contamination does not belong to the outside, but already exists inside. Hybridity is a feature of both living and nonliving things including humans. There’s no such thing as humanity.

키워드