Chapter 13 A Change of Heart: Animality, Power, and Black Posthuman Enhancement in Malorie Blackman’s Pig-Heart Boy

As cardiac xenotransplantation moves from labs into hospitals, this chapter asks what Malorie Blackman’s young adult novel Pig-Heart Boy reveals about power, race, and identity in relation to the experimental therapy. Common heart metaphors are analyzed to ask how the xenograft shapes the teenage pr...

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Главный автор: Trott, Emma
Формат: Online
Язык:английский
Опубликовано: Springer Nature 2024
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Online-ссылка:https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/92126
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author Trott, Emma
author_browse Trott, Emma
author_facet Trott, Emma
author_sort Trott, Emma
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description As cardiac xenotransplantation moves from labs into hospitals, this chapter asks what Malorie Blackman’s young adult novel Pig-Heart Boy reveals about power, race, and identity in relation to the experimental therapy. Common heart metaphors are analyzed to ask how the xenograft shapes the teenage protagonist’s developing selfhood, challenges species boundaries, and conceptualizes a move to the posthuman. While a greater appreciation of biological correspondences between creatures has the potential to challenge anthropocentrism, this can be disrupted by power imbalance, producing not empathy but the development of bioresources. Pig-Heart Boy’s protagonist is a Black British boy who understands that power is inherent to ethical debates about xenotransplantation, and he draws parallels between racism and speciesism. While the novel’s opportunities to fully critique shared power structures are not taken, this chapter suggests that this Black child’s agency in choosing to be the first to receive cutting-edge treatment reimagines histories of abusive experiments on Black bodies and positively speculates on a society without structural health inequities. Acknowledging the complexities in Black posthumanism, this chapter argues that Pig-Heart Boy shows the potential for Black enhancement within posthumanist futures.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1404382024-07-12T04:14:03Z Chapter 13 A Change of Heart: Animality, Power, and Black Posthuman Enhancement in Malorie Blackman’s Pig-Heart Boy Trott, Emma Malorie Blackman’s; young adult novel Pig-Heart Boy; power; race; identity; experimental therapy; xenotransplantation thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PS Biology, life sciences As cardiac xenotransplantation moves from labs into hospitals, this chapter asks what Malorie Blackman’s young adult novel Pig-Heart Boy reveals about power, race, and identity in relation to the experimental therapy. Common heart metaphors are analyzed to ask how the xenograft shapes the teenage protagonist’s developing selfhood, challenges species boundaries, and conceptualizes a move to the posthuman. While a greater appreciation of biological correspondences between creatures has the potential to challenge anthropocentrism, this can be disrupted by power imbalance, producing not empathy but the development of bioresources. Pig-Heart Boy’s protagonist is a Black British boy who understands that power is inherent to ethical debates about xenotransplantation, and he draws parallels between racism and speciesism. While the novel’s opportunities to fully critique shared power structures are not taken, this chapter suggests that this Black child’s agency in choosing to be the first to receive cutting-edge treatment reimagines histories of abusive experiments on Black bodies and positively speculates on a society without structural health inequities. Acknowledging the complexities in Black posthumanism, this chapter argues that Pig-Heart Boy shows the potential for Black enhancement within posthumanist futures. 2024-07-12T04:14:02Z 2024-07-12T04:14:02Z 2024-07-11T12:48:47Z 2024 chapter https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/92126 9783031416941 9783031416972 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/140438 eng open access image/jpeg Attribution 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/92126/1/Bookshelf_NBK603349.pdf Springer Nature Animals and Science Fiction 10.1007/978-3-031-41695-8_13 10.1007/978-3-031-41695-8_13 9fa3421d-f917-4153-b9ab-fc337c396b5a f4c264a2-682c-4aa5-a155-cee1e82c3cf0 d859fbd3-d884-4090-a0ec-baf821c9abfd f6fcd900-36e2-4bc9-939e-ad820802e21f 9783031416941 9783031416972 Wellcome 22 204825/Z/16/Z Wellcome Trust Wellcome 10.13039/100010269 open access
spellingShingle Malorie Blackman’s; young adult novel Pig-Heart Boy; power; race; identity; experimental therapy; xenotransplantation
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies
thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PS Biology, life sciences
Trott, Emma
Chapter 13 A Change of Heart: Animality, Power, and Black Posthuman Enhancement in Malorie Blackman’s Pig-Heart Boy
title Chapter 13 A Change of Heart: Animality, Power, and Black Posthuman Enhancement in Malorie Blackman’s Pig-Heart Boy
title_full Chapter 13 A Change of Heart: Animality, Power, and Black Posthuman Enhancement in Malorie Blackman’s Pig-Heart Boy
title_fullStr Chapter 13 A Change of Heart: Animality, Power, and Black Posthuman Enhancement in Malorie Blackman’s Pig-Heart Boy
title_full_unstemmed Chapter 13 A Change of Heart: Animality, Power, and Black Posthuman Enhancement in Malorie Blackman’s Pig-Heart Boy
title_short Chapter 13 A Change of Heart: Animality, Power, and Black Posthuman Enhancement in Malorie Blackman’s Pig-Heart Boy
title_sort chapter 13 a change of heart animality power and black posthuman enhancement in malorie blackman s pig heart boy
topic Malorie Blackman’s; young adult novel Pig-Heart Boy; power; race; identity; experimental therapy; xenotransplantation
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies
thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PS Biology, life sciences
topic_facet Malorie Blackman’s; young adult novel Pig-Heart Boy; power; race; identity; experimental therapy; xenotransplantation
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies
thema EDItEUR::P Mathematics and Science::PS Biology, life sciences
url https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/92126
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