• “Stutter-Stop Flash-Bulb Strange”: GMOs and the Aesthetics of Scale in Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl

    Author(s):
    Scott Selisker (see profile)
    Date:
    2015
    Group(s):
    Ecocriticism , GS Speculative Fiction, Speculative and Science Fiction, TC Science and Literature
    Subject(s):
    Literature and science, Speculative fiction
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    automaton, GMO, scale, Environment
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6N67R
    Abstract:
    This article raises questions about the aesthetics of scale as they appear relative to genetically modified organisms in science fiction and especially in Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl (2009). Bacigalupi makes the unusual choice of representing GMOs largely through science fictional tropes of automatism rather than the grotesque. Because of this choice, The Windup Girl inventively enables readers to relate to the very small spatial scales and the long temporal scales at which the genome and its effects are most visible. The article suggests that science fiction has particular flexibility with the aesthetics of scale, particularly where technoscientific phenomena have profound consequences that take place at nonhuman scales.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    10.5621/sciefictstud.42.3.0500
    Publisher:
    SF-TH, Inc.
    Pub. Date:
    2015-10-28
    Journal:
    Science Fiction Studies
    Volume:
    42
    Issue:
    3
    Page Range:
    500 - 518
    ISSN:
    0091-7729
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    6 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved
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