‘I don't feel like a copy’: posthuman legal personhood and Caprica
2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 23; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/10383441.2014.1014454
ISSN1839-4205
Autores Tópico(s)Feminism, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
ResumoAbstract What embodiment secures is not the distinction between male and female or between humans who can think and machines which cannot. Rather, embodiment makes clear that thought is a much broader cognitive function depending for its specificities on the embodied form enacting it.N. Katherine HaylesSynopsisFailed science fiction series Caprica (2009–2010) presents its audience with a skilfully articulated vision of a future civilisation grappling with redefining the human in the face of exponential technological advancement. The series serves as a robust text around which legal scholars can explore the jurisprudential problems inherent in authorising the posthuman: The contested existence of a free-thinking, independent avatar (Zoe Graystone) challenges humanist conceptions of personhood and encourages rearticulation of a posthuman legal personhood. This article places Caprica in conversation with posthumanism and the law and proposes that Zoe Graystone's avatar exposes the problems inherent in contemporary constructions of legal personhood; furthermore, it highlights the impossibility of granting full subjectivity to a non-corporeal intelligence within the matrix of humanism. AcknowledgementsThe author wishes to acknowledge the work of rhetorician Colin Gifford Brooke, whose ‘Forgetting to be (Post)Human: Media and Memory in a Kairotic Age’ served as an initial reference point for the author's understanding of and work with posthumanism. The author is also indebted to the GLR peer reviewers whose suggestions for revision were invaluable. Thanks as well to Managing Editors Tim Peters and Ed Mussawir.
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