Papers by Justin O Johnston
Palgrave studies in literature, science and medicine, 2019
This chapter analyses Jeanette Winterson’s recursive novel The Stone Gods in relation to the Anth... more This chapter analyses Jeanette Winterson’s recursive novel The Stone Gods in relation to the Anthropocene as an emerging reformulation of humanity as a planetary force. Examining the relationship between Billie and her Robo Sapien lover, Spike, I trace this couple’s affair as they fall in love, die, and meet again on a different planet, billions of years later. The novel’s recursive narrative structure is captured in the iconic picture of earth as seen from outer space, an image that orbits the novel. This image illustrates the concept of “unlimited finitude” or a notion of reprogrammability that has informed both contemporary biotechnology and parts of the environmentalist movement. Winterson’s spiralling narrative structure interrupts linear, dystopian visions of biotechnological mastery and apocalyptic visions of extinction. This narrative of repetition and difference also formulates a feminist evolution that emphasizes the radical potential of “nature” to change, unseating entrenched elements of capitalist patriarchy.
This introduction begins by exploring the scientific, political, and legal narratives that have f... more This introduction begins by exploring the scientific, political, and legal narratives that have framed the twenty-first century as the biotech century. While these narratives have responded to major developments in bioscience, the story of a biotech future has increasingly relocated “the human” as standing behind or emerging after biotechnological interventions. This is due, in part, to the key role human capital theory has played in developing neoliberal definitions of the human as never-human-enough. I argue that the directive to “be more [than] human” sits comfortably at the intersection of neoliberal and transhumanist models of human belonging. I then preview how contemporary novels engage the biotech future. While these works recognize biotechnological and economic accounts of human belonging in the twenty-first century, they also expose and interrupt the linkages between apocalyptic fear and dystopian depression, genres that shape and limit our collective capacity to imagine an alternative, posthuman, or utopian future.
This coda crystalizes my argument about contemporary dystopian and apocalyptic narratives. Twenty... more This coda crystalizes my argument about contemporary dystopian and apocalyptic narratives. Twenty-first-century dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels offer dependent but distinct social imaginaries about the trajectory of post-industrial life. Where dystopian futurities typically project an intensification of technological surveillance, post-apocalyptic narratives often hinge on the fatal inability of institutions and networks to effectively manage threats posed by non-human forces, viruses, toxins, and climates. Pairing Charlie Booker’s “White Bear” episode of the TV series Black Mirror with Colson Whitehead’s novel Zone One, I analyse the pivotal instant when the genre of both of these texts suddenly changes: the dystopian becomes apocalyptic and vice versa. This moment of bewilderment, I argue, is a symptom produced by a generic engine that represents future catastrophes as alibis for more exacting forms of dystopian control, and represents dystopian control as precipitating ever more catastrophic catastrophes.
This chapter examines Indra Sinha’s fictionalized account of the 1984 toxic chemical spill in Bho... more This chapter examines Indra Sinha’s fictionalized account of the 1984 toxic chemical spill in Bhopal, India, Animal’s People, to critique Dow Chemical’s evocation of humanity in its “The Human Element” ad campaign (2006–2012). When toxic chemicals enter the narrator’s body, his spine is twisted forward, and he adopts the name “Animal.” Walking on his hands and feet, Animal offers up an often-overlooked perspective on non-human relations as he empathically converses with dogs, trees, and others. Not only does Animal refuse to be recognized by western definitions of what constitutes the human, he also helps transform a community of local activists by broadening their coalition to include non-human subjects, the “people of the apocalypse.” I argue, therefore, that the neoliberal call to “be more human” by acquiring more human capital echoes nineteenth-century imperialist discourses, which called on colonized subjects to “be more civilized.”
This chapter interrogates Margaret Atwood’s double-vision of biotechnology’s future in Oryx and C... more This chapter interrogates Margaret Atwood’s double-vision of biotechnology’s future in Oryx and Crake. Atwood’s dystopian vision of corporate biotech stems from a neoliberal ordering of species similar to the organic image of Darwin’s tree of life. Biotech companies employ this arboreal model of upward, outward expansion, and pure individuation to justify patenting new species and to help manage consumers’ bodies. Atwood, however, uses the figure of hybrid-species to radically disrupt the dystopia of what I call “corporate domesticity.” For Atwood, evolution can no longer be read as a process of species divergence, but, instead, must account for prosthetic webs of lateral-gene-transfer and interspecies kinship. Echoing the microbiological work of Lynn Margulis, Atwood posits a symbiogenetic model of evolution that resists the commodification of species. In so doing, however, Atwood posits a post-apocalyptic event that complicates the novel’s genre and uncomfortably blends discourses of evolution, revolution, and genocide.
Framed by the recurring image of fences in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, this chapter traces ... more Framed by the recurring image of fences in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, this chapter traces an historical transition from traditional humanist institutions to posthuman networks, governed by mobile, prosthetic technologies. Once the narrator, Kathy H., and her classmates leave their disciplinary boarding school, they realize that they’re clones whose internal organs will someday be harvested. Waiting for her “donations” to begin, Kathy works as a “carer,” travelling England’s expressways from clinic to clinic, caring for clones and reflecting on her childhood. This new biomedical network reveals a form of mobile discipline that keeps Kathy and others moving along their pre-programmed paths, often exhausted by the caffeine and gasoline propelling them forward. In this way, the clones not only offer us a new language for understanding biotechnological labour, but they also foreground a slippage between workers’ bodies and the circulation of products under neoliberal regimes of human capital.
Contemporary Women's Writing, Mar 1, 2021
This article traces the critical reception of Zadie Smith’s debut novel White Teeth (2000) to arg... more This article traces the critical reception of Zadie Smith’s debut novel White Teeth (2000) to argue that both neoliberal and neoconservative interpretations of her work (and personal celebrity) have distorted the novel’s critique of contemporary biopolitics as a project of debilitating inclusion and racial eugenics. Rather than treating White Teeth as a “hysterical” or “naive” celebration of multiculturalism, this essay, focused on the ending of the novel, instead argues that White Teeth not only anticipates criticisms of multiculturalism as an inadequate model of belonging but also, more importantly, demonstrates a biopolitical understanding of race as a category that manages the distribution of life chances in postcolonial Britain. Drawing on work by Jasbir Puar, Achille Mbembe, and Luce Irigaray, this reframing of White Teeth opens new connections between her early work and her more recent “pessimistic” novels, such as Swing Time.
Palgrave studies in literature, science and medicine, 2019
Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine is an exciting new series that focuses on on... more Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine is an exciting new series that focuses on one of the most vibrant and interdisciplinary areas in literary studies: the intersection of literature, science and medicine. Comprised of academic monographs, essay collections, and Palgrave Pivot books, the series will emphasize a historical approach to its subjects, in conjunction with a range of other theoretical approaches. The series will cover all aspects of this rich and varied field and is open to new and emerging topics as well as established ones.
Twentieth-Century Literature, 2016
This article examines Indra Sinha’s novel Animal’s People, an engagement with the consequences of... more This article examines Indra Sinha’s novel Animal’s People, an engagement with the consequences of the 1984 toxic chemical spill in Bhopal, India, in order to critique the humanist discourse of Dow Chemical’s massive rebranding effort, “The Human Element,” that began in 2006. The novel’s narrator, when his spine is twisted forward by the chemical toxins, adopts the name “Animal.” In contesting Western definitions of what constitutes a human, he helps to reimagine postcolonial activism by broadening its coalition to include nonhuman subjects. Sinha’s version of postcolonial environmentalism, this article thus suggests, searches out the possibilities and limitations of a posthuman postcolonialism.
Contemporary Women's Writing
This article traces the critical reception of Zadie Smith’s debut novel White Teeth (2000) to arg... more This article traces the critical reception of Zadie Smith’s debut novel White Teeth (2000) to argue that both neoliberal and neoconservative interpretations of her work (and personal celebrity) have distorted the novel’s critique of contemporary biopolitics as a project of debilitating inclusion and racial eugenics. Rather than treating White Teeth as a “hysterical” or “naive” celebration of multiculturalism, this essay, focused on the ending of the novel, instead argues that White Teeth not only anticipates criticisms of multiculturalism as an inadequate model of belonging but also, more importantly, demonstrates a biopolitical understanding of race as a category that manages the distribution of life chances in postcolonial Britain. Drawing on work by Jasbir Puar, Achille Mbembe, and Luce Irigaray, this reframing of White Teeth opens new connections between her early work and her more recent “pessimistic” novels, such as Swing Time.
This article traces the critical reception of Zadie Smith's debut novel White Teeth (2000) to arg... more This article traces the critical reception of Zadie Smith's debut novel White Teeth (2000) to argue that both neoliberal and neoconservative interpretations of her work (and personal celebrity) have distorted the novel's critique of contemporary biopolitics as a project of debilitating inclusion and racial eugenics. Rather than treating White Teeth as a "hysterical" or "naive" celebration of multiculturalism, this essay, focused on the ending of the novel, instead
This article examines Indra Sinha’s novel Animal’s People, an engagement with the consequences of... more This article examines Indra Sinha’s novel Animal’s People, an engagement with the consequences of the 1984 toxic chemical spill in Bhopal, India, in order to critique the humanist discourse of Dow Chemical’s massive rebranding effort, “The Human Element,” that began in 2006. The novel’s narrator, when his spine is twisted forward by the chemical toxins, adopts the name “Animal.” In contesting Western definitions of what constitutes a human, he helps to reimagine postcolonial activism by broadening its coalition to include nonhuman subjects. Sinha’s version of postcolonial environmentalism, this article thus suggests, searches out the possibilities and limitations of a posthuman postcolonialism.
Regeneration," seeks to develop a historically contingent reading of the term "masculinity" as it... more Regeneration," seeks to develop a historically contingent reading of the term "masculinity" as it is elaborated in relation to sexuality and discipline. More specifically, I am interested in looking at the layers of discursive meanings that construct or clothe the body as "masculine." My aim is not to undress this body of its prosthetic signifiers, but address this body, or to locate it in relation to its social surroundings, and disciplinary institutions. By examining a series of scenes, passages and arguments from Tobias Wolff's In Pharaoh's Army and Pat Barker's Regeneration, I will revise Gilles Deleuze's notion of "masochism" to highlight the political stakes in formulating a male homosocial masochistic scene.
Books by Justin O Johnston
Palgrave Springer Nature, 2019
This book examines several distinctive literary figurations of posthuman embodiment as they proli... more This book examines several distinctive literary figurations of posthuman embodiment as they proliferate across a range of internationally acclaimed contemporary novels: clones in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, animal-human hybrids in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, toxic bodies in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People, and cyborgs in Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods. While these works explore the transformational power of the “biotech century,” they also foreground the key role human capital theory has played in framing human belonging as an aspirational category that is always and structurally just out of reach, making contemporary subjects never-human-enough. In these novels, the dystopian character of human capital theory is linked to fantasies of apocalyptic release. As such, these novels help expose how two interconnected genres of futurity (the dystopian and the apocalyptic) work in tandem to propel each other forward so that fears of global disaster become alibis for dystopian control, which, in turn, becomes the predicate for intensifying catastrophes. In analyzing these novels, Justin Omar Johnston draws attention to the entanglement of bodies in technological environments, economic networks, and deteriorating ecological settings.
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Papers by Justin O Johnston
Books by Justin O Johnston