Open AccessPostbiological Evolution in Dietmar Dath's "The Abolition of Spicies"
Author(s) -
Branka B. Ognjanović
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
proglas
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2367-8585
pISSN - 0861-7902
DOI - 10.54664/nrlo2159
Subject(s) - posthuman , posthumanism , human evolution , depiction , history , environmental ethics , philosophy , evolutionary biology , epistemology , biology , linguistics
The paper gives an insight into the postbiological evolution and the posthuman world in the novel “The Abolition of Species” („Die Abschaffung der Arten“, 2008) by Dietmar Dath. The term postbiological evolution refers to a human-driven evolution that in the novel leads to a world inhabited by human descendants in the form of machines and animals. It analyzes the development of the opposed civilizations of robots (the so-called Keramikaner) and human-animal hybrids (the so-called Gente). The posthuman world they inhabit is a world in which Man is no longer at the center of world history and only lives on thanks to technogenic and genetic modifications. The aim of the paper is to explore the depiction of the altered relationship of the modern humans to their biological and technological environment by analyzing the influence of the theories of postbiological life and posthumanism on the novel.