Domesticating Hierarchies, Eugenic Hygiene and Exclusion Zones: The Dogs and Clones of Houellebecq's La Possibilité d'une île

Grass, Delphine (2012) Domesticating Hierarchies, Eugenic Hygiene and Exclusion Zones: The Dogs and Clones of Houellebecq's La Possibilité d'une île. L'Esprit Créateur, 52 (2). pp. 127-140. ISSN 0014-0767

Abstract

This article discusses the links between animality, cloning, sexuality, and capitalism in Houellebecq's novel La Possibilité d'une île (2005). In the novel, sexuality and the laws of natural selection are portrayed as discourses that naturalise the capitalist ideology of competitiveness at a biopolitical level. This article argues that, by reflecting beyond the nature versus culture debate in relation to human cloning, La Possibilité d'une île politicises the question of biotechnological reproduction as a matter of collective ownership.