O limiar entre o corpo humano e o corpo robótico: transumanismo e pós-humanismo nas obras Deuses de Pedra, de Jeanette Winterson e Androides Sonham com Ovelhas Elétricas?, de Philip K. Dick

Abstract

In the contemporaneity, body and technology are connected to the discourse of perfect health and ideal appearance. Cosmetic industries, plastic surgeries and studies on genetics and physical performance seek to improve the capabilities of bodies by changing their natural characteristics and placing the mastery of the body to the human being, and the technological resources and studies developed. These discussions are part of the transhumanist and post-humanist theories which seek to find ways to improve humans, either by corporeal or mental bias and leave them with greater autonomy and control of their bodies from the use of technological resources as an improvement of the bodies. In the same perspective, robotic bodies are approaching the physical characteristics of human bodies, and the functional aspects of the machine begin to be linked to the acceptance of a similar body, and whereas a nonhuman body is humanized, the human body is machinized, as the androids and the cyborgs, respectively. The present project aims to focus on the boundaries between the human body and the robotic body, trying to understand the threshold between humans and nonhumans from the comparative analysis of Stone Gods (2007), by Jeanette Winterson and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), by Philip K. Dick. For that, a theoretical discussion about the concepts of transhumanism and post-humanism from the technological advances is presented, going through the concept of biopolitics, bioethics and artificial life for the understanding of how much the human being and robots can be closer, and of a concept that admits the constant change in bodies. Next, it is analyzed some aspects of the chosen literary texts, such as the discussion of the body, the influence of technology on the (trans)human characters, the traces of post humanity in non-human characters, the affective relationships that are established between human and non-human characters and the control of the human and non-human characters from the changes and standardization of their bodies.