In Octavia Butler's Dawn transhumanism: Scientific utopia or humanistic dystopia?

Abstract

Transhumanism is a 21st century radical movement focusing on the evolution of the humanity through advanced technologies or scientific utopia that will lead to humanistic dystopia because the enhanced humanity would be partly ultra beings and partly aliens, robots, androids and other type of hybrid nonhuman multispecies. Thus, as the human beings through advanced technology form a scientific utopia, they will change humanity into subhuman beings and different species. Namely, as transhumanism  intends to reform a better future for humanity that is re-designed with the advanced technology, it will lead the path to transitioning humans into trans-beings. Recently, in the literary world transhumanism and posthumanism are exponentially growing subjects all around the world which display enhanced human beings and human future either as a utopia or as a dystopia. Octavia Butler's Dawn is one of the literary texts that deals with the future of the human being and focuses on the multispecies Oankali aliens and the trans beings. In Butler's Dawn the protagonist Lilith Iyapo awakens 250 years after the catastrophic nuclear war, on a spaceship of the alien Oankali race that has the power to reconstruct a new humanity due to their advanced biotechnologies, genetic engineering, and post-human reproduction. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyze Octavia Butler's Dawn in the light of transhumanism that seeks to reform an enhanced life with the advanced scientific utopian perspective but the result will be leading to a dystopian future for humanity.

Keywords

• Transhumanism,utopia,dytopia,Octavia Butler

Octavia Butler'ın Dawn'ında transhümanizm: Bilimsel ütopya mı yoksa hümanist distopya mı?

Öz

21. yüzyılın radikal bir akımı olan Transhümanizm, ileri teknolojiler veya bilimsel ütopya yoluyla insanlığın evrimi üzerine odaklanmaktadır fakat bu insancıl distopya ya yol açacak çünkü gelişmiş insanlık kısmen ultra varlıklar ve kısmen uzaylılar, robotlar, androidler ve diğer insanlık dışı çoklu melez türler olacaktır. Böylece, ileri teknoloji yoluyla, bilimsel bir ütopya oluştururken, diğer yandan insanlığı insanlık dışı varlıklara dönüştürecektir. Yani, Transhümanizm, ileri teknoloji ile yeniden tasarlanan insanlık için daha iyi bir gelecek oluşturma niyetiyle insanların trans-varlıklara dönüşmesine yol açacaktır. Son zamanlarda, edebiyat dünyasında ve tüm dünyada katlanarak büyüyen konular olan transhümanizm ve post-insancılık, insanlığın geleceğini ütopya veya distopya olarak göstermektedirler. Octavia Butler'ın Dawn'ı, insanoğlunun geleceği ile ilgilenen ve Oankali uzaylılarına ve trans varlıklarına odaklanan edebi metinlerden biridir. Butler'ın Dawn'nda, ana karakter Lilith Iyapo, nükleer savaştan 250 yıl sonra, gelişmiş biyoteknolojileri, genetik mühendisliği ve insanlık sonrası üremeleri nedeniyle yeni bir insanlığı yeniden inşa etme gücüne sahip Oankali ırkının uzay gemisinde uyanır. Bu nedenle, bu çalışmanın amacı, Octavia Butler'ın Dawn romanını, gelişmiş bir bilimsel ütopik bakış açısıyla gelişmiş bir yaşamı yeniden düzenlemeyi amaçlayan transhümanizm ışığında incelemektir fakat sonuç insanlık için distopik bir geleceğe yol açacaktır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Transhümanizm,utopia,distopia,Octavia Butler,Dawn

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