New publication by Julia Gatermann | Queer Reproductive Technologies

Queer Reproductive Technologies

Chapter by J. Gatermann in Technologies of Feminist Speculative Fiction, edited by Sherryl Vint and Sümeyra Buran:

Groomed for Survival—Queer Reproductive Technologies and Cross-Species Assemblages in Larissa Lai’s The Tiger Flu

Abstract:
Women’s reproductive rights continue to be a highly contested ground. Larissa Lai’s queer speculative novel The Tiger Flu (2018) comments from a feminist, critical posthuman perspective on how the gendered and racialized bodies especially of women from the Global South are culturally marked as ultimately expendable and exploitable. This chapter analyzes how Lai explores the potential of alternative reproductive technologies such as cloning and genetic engineering as a means of empowerment for marginalized and subaltern subjects. From an ecocritical perspective, the thus arising new non-human entanglements provide an alternative to the Western, patriarchal, neo-liberal system that, if left unchecked, might lead to the destruction of the planet and all life on it—through new odd kinships, a more equal and egalitarian way of life becomes possible.

Keywords:
Reproductive Justice, Critical Posthumanism, Non-Human Entanglements, Ecocriticism

Reference:
Gatermann, J. (2022). Groomed for Survival—Queer Reproductive Technologies and Cross-Species Assemblages in Larissa Lai’s The Tiger Flu. In: Vint, S., Buran, S. (eds) Technologies of Feminist Speculative Fiction. Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96192-3_5