Chimeras and Breast Milk

Oryx and Crake was only a few years ahead of reality:

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680450/these-new-transgenic-goats-are-filled-with-human-breast-milk

Jay Clayton

 

“You Gradgrind”: The Role of Literature in Saturday

Dan Fang questions McEwan’s stance on literature in Saturday as she uses examples of literature’s possible power and influence in Perowne’s life. For a neurosurgeon who doesn’t seem to like literature, Perowne seems to attract quite a bit of poetic justice, both figuratively (with Baxter under his knife at the end) and literally (with Daisy reciting poetry to ward off her attacker.) So what IS the ultimate stance? Is literature powerful, or in the eyes of a neurosurgeon, is it merely a farce? Join the discussion below!

“You Gradgrind”: The Role of Literature in Saturday

A World of Saturdays: The Unities and Beyond

Analyzing the structure of Ian McEwan’s Saturday, Erin Pellarin discusses Sir Phillip Sidney’s Classical Unities, and how Saturday utilizes them in order to emphasize how, despite the internal nature of the point of view, the outside world and its influences continually pervade the narration.

A World of Saturdays: The Unities and Beyond

Generous Scheherazade

What is the power of fiction? Dan Fang ponders this topic in her blog post as she debates the wavering line between fiction and fact in the world that Powers has presented. If all writing is rewriting, is there such thing as a new story, new material? Or are we simply telling the same stories over and over again in a variety of ways? Scheherazade, the weaver of tales in Arabian Nights, proves the power of stories by using her fabricated narratives to keep her alive. What is Powers trying to say about the power of stories?

Generous Scheherazade

Powers, Pater, Penman: Generosity and Mindfulness

Richard Powers’s book Generosity, An Enhancement might center its narrative around the seemingly unflappable, amicable Thassa Amzwar, but is the book actually ABOUT her? Killian C. Quigley doesn’t seem to think so; using quotes from Walter Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance and Danny Penman, he argues that the fascination with Thassa is actually a reflection on the society around her, and what the reactions that this Chicago has to Miss Generosity signifies a condition not within the girl, but her surroundings.

Powers, Pater, Penman: Generosity and Mindfulness

The Story on Stories: Narrative in Generosity

Erin Pellarin examines the metafictional aspects of Richard Powers’s Generosity in her blog post, analyzing each major character in order to delve into the stories within the overarching narrative. Through a closer look at the individual characters’ stories, Pellarin brings up a question applicable to our daily lives: what responsibility and ability do we have to change our own stories in the future?

The Story on Stories: Narrative in Generosity

Bioethics and Nationality: A Romance

Of course, certain cultural and historical values would affect the decisions and attitudes of their citizens, and Erin Pellarin applies this to bioethics, Chromosome 6, and Never Let Me Go. Using the perceived differences between Britain and America, she argues that a question of humanity becomes a nationalist debate. And perhaps, using this theory, we can possibly answer the question of why the clones never ran away.

Bioethics and Nationality: A Romance