Posthuman and Personhood: Legal Ambiguity of Robo Spiens, Corporate and Nature in Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53469/jtpss.2023.03(09).03Keywords:
legal ambiguity, legal personhood, posthunman, The Stone GodsAbstract
Posthumanism is frequently associated with the concept that humans are no longer mere biological entities, but rather intricate and multifaceted beings endowed with distinctive characteristics and abilities. Conversely, legal personhood pertains to the status of individuals or organizations as legal entities possessing rights and responsibilities under the law. This encompasses their capacity to engage in contractual agreements, own property, initiate or be subject to lawsuits, and receive specific protections under legal frameworks. Both ideologies emphasize the significance of individual autonomy and agency while simultaneously challenging conventional notions of humanity. What’s more, the Stone Gods portrays nature, corporations, and robo sapiens as entities endowed with a certain "legal personhood" during the posthuman era, igniting fervent debates on whether we should bestow such status upon these non-human beings. This article delves into the legal ambiguity surrounding personhood for non-humans in this futuristic era, aiming to further explore the rational potential of dynamic legal personhood for the future.
References
Neil B. Alien Chic: Posthumanism and the Other Within [M]. London and New York: Routledge, 2004:87.
Visa A.J. Kurki. A Theory of Legal Personhood[M]. Oxford UP. 2019.
Cary W. What is Posthumanism[M]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.
Xu Tiantian. Biopolitics of Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods, Sichuan Normal University. MA thesis. 2022.
Wang Suying. Relational Love and Imagination of Human-Machine Being-with in The Stone Gods[J] Foreign Literature Research.2022, 44 (03): 80-88
Nicholas Ross, The Politics of Life itself: Biomedicine, power, and subjectivity in the twenty-first century [M]. Yin Jing, trans. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2014:13.
Ihab Hassan Source. Prometheus as Performer: Toward a Posthumanist Culture? The Georgia Review,1977.
Marc Diefenderfer. Objective Violence Spaceman Economies and the Transnational Corporation Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment Oxford Academic 2020: 526–543
Heise, U. K. Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press.2016.
Alexis Dyschkant. Legal Personhood: How We Are Getting It Wrong. University of Illinois Law Review.2015. 2075-2110.
Bowman Scott. The Modern Corporation and American Political Thought: Law, Power, and Ideology. Pennsylvania State UP, 1996：17
Winterson, Jeanette. The PowerBook. Vintage Books, 2000.
Clare, Ralph. Fictions Inc. Rutgers UP, 2014.:2
Foucault, Michel. “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the College de France, 1975-1976. Trans. David Macey. Picador, 2003:242
Shiva, Vandana. Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. 1997. North Atlantic Books, 2016.:82
Canavan, Gerry, and Kim Stanley Robinson, editors. Green Planets: Ecology and Science Fiction. Wesleyan UP, 2014.: 10
Trexler, A. 2015. Anthropocene Fictions. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Emily Arvay. Ecocide and Empire in Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods, Green Letters, 2020:3, 277-290
Dignam, Alan, and John Lowry. Company Law. 8th ed. Oxford UP, 2014:15
Highfield, R. 2001. “Colonies in Space May Be Only Hope, Says Hawking.” Telegraph, October 16. (www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1359562/Colonies-in-space-may-be-only-hope-saysHawking.html)
Else, L., and E. Harris. Science in Fiction: Interview with Novelist Jeanette Winterson[J]. New Scientist, 2007, 195 (2618): 50–51.
Sharon T. Human. Nature in an Age of Biotechnology: The Case for Mediated Posthumansim [M]. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014.
Catherine Heller, How We Became Posthumans: The Virtual Bodies of Literature, Information, Science, and cybernetics. Trans. Liu Yuqing[M]. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2017.
Fukuyama, Francis. Our Posthuman Future: The consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. Huang Lizhi, Trans[M]. Nanning: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2017:20.
