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Final Paper and Portfolio

Honors 392
Heather Borror
6 June 2016
Final Paper

The world of Never Let Me Go is readily constructed as a biopolitical one, reflecting

ideas found in readings of Giorgio Agamben and Hortense Spillers. The clones in the novel are

made into bare life in their society, and they also be characterized as a slave-like population,

whose bodies are rendered to flesh and stripped of kinship. Resistance to this characterization as

slaves and bare life is presented in a variety of ways, yet the outcomes of this resistance do not

necessarily do anything to progress the condition of the clones. From a broader perspective, it is

Ishiguros presentation of the story that presents room for the most resistance.

Bare life, the life of the homo sacer, is that of someone who can be killed but not

sacrificed (Agamben 140), the individual whose death can be considered meaningless. In this

regard, the clones fit such a description: the clones body is to be used for medical science, yet its

life the experience of the individual, the value of that individual to other individuals which

would otherwise be deserving of protection is ultimately disposable.

Agambens concept of an inclusive exclusion comes to light in this story in the way that

clones are pushed to the margins of society, yet they are a necessity for the rest of society to

thrive. This marginalization is highlighted when Kathy expresses her perplexity at the inhumane

treatment of other clones (Ishiguro 262). Emily thus responds from the side of the non-

marginalized: the clones role as a medical tool is invaluable and, in order for them to justify the

protection of their own health, other members of society did not want to consider the clones as

human. To ask society to confer value to the lives of clones, to make it difficult to harvest organs

and halt such medical practices, would mean to go back to the dark days (263), to go back to a

time of incurable disease and suffering.

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Turning this on its head, the general response to the Morningdale scandal and the

subsequent shut-down of the humanization movement, by challenging the role of clones in

society, concretizes the designation of the clones as less than human. When the opportunity

arises to create clones that could potentially contribute to society, if given a place proper in the

polis, for the better with superior intelligence and physical capabilities, the scenario is not

perceived to be a positive development. Instead, it is a threat (264). The clones must remain

subhuman, never super.

All the same, as Agamben sees it, the only real question to be decided was which form

of organization would best be suited to the task of assuring the care, control, and use of bare life

(Agamben 147). This question is raised by those running the facilities meant to house, care for,

and eventually destroy the clones in other words, decisions must be made as to what to do with

the clones bodies while they are still alive.

Bare life can be applied to another reading of the novel: Hortense Spillers slaves. For

Spillers, slaves are made into bare life largely through the transformation of bodies into flesh.

This occurs by speaking of the slaves as if they were physical entities without any human

qualities. In the story, this is the way society wishes to perceive the clones, making them

identifiable with the slaves Spillers describes subhuman tools of medicine. Emily supports this

by commenting that, shortly after clones were being put into usage, the clones were seen as only

[s]hadowy objects in test tubes by most people (Ishiguro 261).

The clearest parallel between the novel and the Spillers text is her description of the

captive body, which is reduced to a thing, becoming being for the captor (Spillers 67). Indeed,

the clones of NLMG are brought into being for the express purpose of organ harvesting.

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Ishiguros employment of the word completion in the story, synonymous for the death of the

clone upon donations, confers the connotation that the clones have a purpose that is terminal

More so, there exists a clear parallel with Spillers text in the real-world usage of slaves

for medical research. Through the profitable atomizing of the captive body (68) in the case

of the novel, the dissection of the clones flesh for societys gain the link between personal

identity and the flesh it inhabits is lost. To that extent, the procedures adopted for the captive

flesh demarcate a total objectification, as the entire captive community becomes a living

laboratory (68). Again, the individual clone is rendered a disposable object.

Resistance to this prescribed role for clones manifests itself in a variety of ways, from

both those who seek to reform and the clones themselves. Hailsham in particular is a place where

kinship is allowed to develop, countering one of the crucial means of slave-making in Spillers

text. Spillers argues that the relations of property ownership distort the natural relationship

between parents and offspring, rendering the children of slaves as a kind of orphan (74).

Regarding the novel, the clones do not have biological families and are incapable of

reproducing and creating their own families: there are no clone parents. However, the guardians

at Hailsham fill the role of parent during the clones childhood. To some members of society, it

would be enough to simply keep the clones bodies healthy a distinct necessity highlighted by

the severe no-smoking rules (Ishiguro 40). Yet the Hailsham faculty does more: they educate the

clones in history and literature and art, steeping them in culture, and they are a source of warmth

and affection.

However, this kind of kinship created at Hailsham is still temporary, as the clones are

invariably separated from the institution and their peers. The opportunity to become carers and to

interact with other clones throughout the donation process does provide a chance for clones to

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continue supporting one another. In the case of Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth, their time together at

the donation center allows them to reconnect and make sense of their shared childhoods. This

horizontal connection (as opposed to a vertical one with the parent-like guardian) is reflective of

what Spillers here describes: the captive person developed, time and again, certain ethical

and sentimental features that tied her and him, across the landscape to others, often sold from

hand to hand, of the same and different blood in a common fabric of memory and inspiration

(Spillers 75). Given the space provided by Hailsham, the clones are able to create their own such

fabric in a similar fashion as the slaves in the face of familial alienation.

Despite these personally valuable relationships, Spiller further notes that such

connectedness in the era of slaves lacked the same legal and social meaning as family; it does

nothing for the slaves politically in terms of protection. This passage in Spillers is paralleled by

the clones belief in the rumor of deferral: Kathy and Tommy hope that they can prove that their

love for one another is strong enough to grant them time to live. Yet, as Emily declares, it does

not matter. Their fate as donors cannot be changed or put on hold.

The resistance posed by the Hailsham administrators is further complicated, though, as

they themselves struggle to accept the humanity of the child clones. Emily herself confesses that,

at times, she felt outright disgust towards the children, yet she was determined not to let such

feelings stop me from doing what was right (Ishiguro 269). Despite their fight to give the clones

a human upbringing, they accept the clones role in society as adults and do not attempt to

change the course of the future. Spillers notes It is true that the most 'well-meaning' of 'masters'

could not, did not alter the ideological and hegemonic mandates of dominance (Spillers 75).

Ishiguro, when Emily muses that she hopes her wheelchair isnt a permanent fixture (257),

hints that she may become a beneficiary of the clones sacrifice. Such a reading of this passage

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viscerally reminds us that Emily is one of many who benefit from the clones in society. As a

whole, the characterization of the Hailsham administrators illustrates an interesting parallel with

white abolitionists: from the guardians perspective, the clones are human, but they are still

others.

Lucy in particular struggles with her role as a guardian: she is torn about how to treat the

children, and thus resists in her own ways. Her discomfort is illustrated early in the book by a

young Tommy. He describes how she told him that the children werent being taught enough

about their futures, demonstrating an ideological disconnect: the adults are withholding

important information about the childrens identity, and she believes that the children deserve to

know. Her personal conviction is strong enough for her to say shed a good mind to talk to us

about it herself (29). This foreshadows her outburst to the children later in the book. Before

spelling it out clearly, she acknowledges that her speech may be somewhat inappropriate but

necessary. She frames her exposition with the following: If no one else will tell youthen I

will (81). In this sentence, Lucy acknowledges that she is deviating from the position of the

other guardians, who have collectively chosen not to be explicit. She then takes the situation into

her own hands and stands up for her own sense of right and wrong. Her frustrations with the

situation eventually leads to her departure from Hailsham. To me, it is unclear whether she had

been fired or had left of her own accord. If she had willingly resigned, that would constitute its

own act of resistance: she cannot stand for the system that Hailsham has created because, in her

eyes, it does not do enough to make the clones human.

That said, Hailsham may not truly function effectively a site of resistance at all. Indeed,

Emily expresses regret at not being able to do more for the children in terms of political progress

(261). Yet by conditioning the clone children to believe that their existence is normal, by treating

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them well and allowing them to love and feel loved, the clones do not fight their fate. Because of

the way their world is shaped, to them, there is no perceivable out. The very usage of the word

donation can serve to twist the clones perception of their place, especially if one considers

how language can shape reality. In another context, a donation can be interpreted as gift on

behalf of the giver, something that is freely and willingly given. It suggests a degree of agency in

the situation. Such an agency is not made available to the clones. A clone may be able to put off

their donations for as long as they are able to handle being a carer, but they still do not have a

choice in whether or not they donate.

Of the clones, Tommy is notable as he recognizes the horror of his situation and strives to

resist, but does not succeed. His response instead comes in form of his tantrums. As a child, he is

demonstrated to be sensitive and often throws tantrums in response to being bullied or confused.

He maintains such sensitivity into adulthood, and one would hope that someone capable of

responding so acutely to conflict and pain would seek to make change. This isnt necessarily the

case. On the way back from Emilys home, he flies into a rage in response to what he and Kathy

have learned (274). Yet this episode does not turn into rebellion, only resignation, as he and

Kathy continue to carry out their roles as before. Tommy never seeks true escape or attempts to

fight the powers that be.

The pursuit of deferral with Kathy itself was Tommys most explicit act of resistance, yet

it can still be considered as a compliant act. If the rumor was true, it would have been complicit

with the existing system. Tommy he had been playing by the rules, so to speak, the entire time:

he was making art and fostering his relationship with Kathy, just as it should be according to the

rumor. This was not a means of demanding freedom, but petitioning for reprieve while still

subjecting themselves to the system. It is possible that he and Kathy may have recognized that

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being a fugitive might not confer them the kind of life that they desired, therefore making it

imperative that they seek legitimized forms of exit. Yet this is only speculation, as such

possibilities are never discussed in the text.

Ishiguros narrative technique itself challenges the making of clones into bare life, into

slaves by allowing Kathy to tell her story, to recount her childhood and reflect on her life. He

initially obscures the fate of the children at Hailsham, not explicitly stating their purpose until

Lucys outburst a third of the way through. This allows the reader to experience Kathys

memories in a way that does not necessarily question her humanity.

He also uses the resignation of the clones to their role as a potential challenge to general

acceptance. The end of the novel was personally very difficult to swallow, and it did not sit well

with me that Kathy did not try to do anything about her situation. This might have been the

response that Ishiguro intended. He may have wanted the reader to recognize that clones

possessed a humanity that deserved to be respected by society. Indeed, Ishiguro narrates the

novel as Kathy in the first person. She is directly telling the reader her story, building a

relationship and inviting him or her to become part of the narrative. In a sense, the reader is

capable of becoming the principle embodiment of resistance in the novel.

Never Let Me Go is a poignant meditation on our relationships to one another. Analyzing

the story through the lens of Agamben and Spillers deepens the interpretation, illuminating

unsettling parallels between the fictional world and the real. The clones are supposedly made

from the same biological materials that regular people are, yet they are maintained by society as

less-than-human entities. The novel makes the reader question the ways in which our own

society creates us-and-them dichotomies, how we treat those that are not us, and, perhaps most

importantly, how we should.

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Response 1

With this text, Foucault seeks to analyze the discourses surrounding sexuality in Western

culture. He frames his analysis in Part I, discussing how typically we consider sexuality to have

been repressed in the Victorian era and liberated in the current. Foucault wishes to challenge this

Repressive Hypothesis, stating that sexuality has always been a topic of discourse, and also

seeks to ask why such a hypothesis has gained such prominence. In Part II, Foucault counters the

Repressive Hypothesis by claiming that, in trying to keep sexuality hidden, people have created

different lenses through which to discuss it. These lenses have expanded since the Victorian era,

and the resulting categorization of different perversions came to be a tool of exerting control

within society.

Part III poses the idea that the West perceives sexuality to be something that has truth

within itself, and that must be analyzed and investigated that the West seeks to generate

knowledge about it. This is contrasted with other cultures, who have treated sex like an art rather

than a science. In Part IV, he presents the argument that sexuality is a tool of power, power

referring to the collective of different force relations within a system. The shift that we have

identified as repression in the Victorian era seems to rather be an outgrowth of the

bourgeoisies desire for self-preservation of status: they must use it to control themselves to

ensure the future.

One section that struck me was his characterization of Western and Non-Western

historical attitudes towards sexuality. He describes other cultures as possessing their own sort of

ars erotica (57), which also seeks to gain an understanding of sexualitys truth yet considers this

truth to be of a different nature, that which encompasses the experience of pleasure, its value

coming from the special-ness of the experience. If I had not read this is in the context of

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Foucaults argument, it is likely that I would have perceived such a statement to possess more

freedom with their sexuality: that they view it more positively and seem to embrace it. However,

I realize that this is the kind of thinking that Foucault wishes to challenge. We, the West, have

always embraced sexuality but have simply framed it differently within our society. Trying to use

terms like freedom and repression in a black-and-white way is very limiting to the

discussion.

On a different note, I appreciated the discourse of the role of confession in Foucaults

history. As someone with a scientific background, Im glad that Foucault points out how the act

of confession is not necessarily a reliable way to draw objective conclusions (64). Confessions

are subject to the experience of the individual, whose verity is disputable and depends on the

relationship between the speaker and the listener. To me, in order to render something as a

scientific statement, one must be able to demonstrate causality between events yielding the same

results in multiple scenarios. In other words, the result must be replicable. Thus, much of the

science surrounding sexuality in the past is not really passable as such in the modern sense of

the word. However, Foucaults contextualization gives these a lot more sense, and Ive developed

more respect for it in within the frame of mans greater pursuit of knowledge.

The power dynamics inherent to the act of confession as Foucault unravels it (61) was

very intriguing and resonated with me personally. In receiving personal information, the listener

does potentially gain some form of leverage over the speaker. Yet the speaker, despite being

vulnerable in relaying such information, can be considered empowered in doing so. As a pair,

they can transgress more widely-applying social norms. This reflects to me the importance of

trust in such situations, and reminds me of experiences Ive had with the people that are close to

me.

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One question that came to mind in Part IV regards life expectancy and effective treatment

of disease. Foucault presents this need for preservation of power of the bourgeoisie (123), and I

wonder to what degree that is influenced by the capabilities of healthcare. In the United States of

the 21st Century, we do not encounter death with much regularity at all removed from daily life,

it has been sequestered to the hospital. In centuries prior, families would have many children and

not all would be guaranteed to survive into adulthood: death was far more commonplace, a more

present reality to be dealt with. With this intense attention to sexuality that Foucault presents, it

seems logical for there to be some sort of connection. If we think we can predict negative

outcomes ahead of time, in coping with the uncertainty of the future, and can understand what

causes it, were going to do whatever we can to avoid those situations. Thus, if degeneracy is

presumed to be dangerous to the health of our offspring, and if we have unsure methods of

coping with such health problems, the fear surrounding perversion is very logical.

Overall, this reading illustrated to me how we are largely responsible for creating our

own realities and yet are subject to the constructions of others, calling into question how much

control any individual actually has over their situation. The way in which Foucault conceives of

power as something that stems from within and between rather than from above, and that social

structures can be considered a result of the pre-existing forces existing between people makes

sense, but the degree to which the individual can influence and engender wider change seems

very fuzzy.

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Response 2

In the final chapter of History of Sexuality Vol 1, Foucault arrives at biopower in the final

chapter from sexuality. The biopower he introduces in History of Sexuality is discussed at greater

length in his lecture, Society Must Be Defended, as he uses the concept to frame an argument

for the role that racism plays in such a society. Although, in the lecture, Foucault frames

sexuality within biopower, rather than as biopower emerging from sexuality, reading the two

together has helped to clarify my understanding of Foucaults viewpoints on the elements of

population management

In the lecture Society Must Be Defended, Foucault seeks to discuss State racism

(61). Before diving in, however, he contextualizes it through the shift from sovereign power to

biopower. Foucault here reiterates ideas from the final chapter of History of Sexuality, claiming

that the sovereign possesses the right to take life or let live and that the subject is a neutral entity

in this scheme. With biopower, on the other hand, the right to make live and to let die (62)

comes into play. This reflects a shift from permitting individual lives to go on when it not a

threat to the head to shaping lives proactively through various surveillances and regulations of

the social body via norms and standards. In the lecture, Foucault later makes three clarifying

points: a) the object of biopower is the social body, b) biopower is concerned with metrics of

population that are arbitrary on a small scale yet is illustrative of trends on a larger scale, and c)

biopower seeks to influence these metrics from its source in order to create an optimal state for

the population of interest (66, 67). This shift aligns with another statement made in History of

Sexuality: that, in the nineteenth century, the issue of life itself had entered the political sphere on

a different level than before. Given the advances in humanitys abilities to find, create, and

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manage its resources, the threat of death became less imminent: we could better manage its

occurrence (142). Ultimately, the population is of utmost concern in the new paradigm.

Foucault then describes how there are two categories of methods to deal with the social

body, one that is disciplinary and seeks to intervene on the level of the individual and one that is

regulatory and intervenes at the level of the population (69). These categories are not mutually

exclusive, and can manifest themselves in institutions like the police and health insurance.

Foucault identifies the unifying element between the disciplinary and the regulatory: the norm. In

such a society governed by regulation, he calls attention to the role of killing individuals plays as

it differs from that of a sovereign society. Whereas killing to protect the sovereign, how does one

justify killing in a state that seeks to make life? It is at this point that Foucault finally

incorporates racism. To him, racism is a means of creating division within populations using a

biological logic. Not only does it function to fragment, racism can be used to justify using the

right to kill, or allowing others to die because it may be of benefit to the rest of the group (75). In

other words, if one group is otherized as inferior or potentially harmful, then it is acceptable to

allow for its elimination. In a society managed by biopolitics, this attitude of Social Darwinism

follows naturally. It can be a lens through which to evaluate the political actions taken to protect

some individuals over others. Foucault then brings up the example of Nazi Germany as a unique

merging of biopower and sovereign power: a society in which all were encouraged to surveille in

a biopolitical manner yet also to exercise the right to kill those who did not suit the norm (78).

The ideas presented in the lecture are, again, not new to those who have read the last

chapter of History of Sexuality. However, in this chapter, Foucaults focus is more on a

discussion of power inherent within the construct of Western sexuality. In History of Sexuality,

he also defines sovereign power in terms of its rights over life and death. Additionally, he also

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distinguishes the two categories of control over the social body again, referring to the

disciplining of the individual and the regulating of the population (138, 139). The point of

intersection for the two domains of discipline and regulation, which is also mentioned in the

lecture (71), is sex (146). Relevant to the usage of sex as a means of creating bonded individuals,

Foucault then discusses how the significance of blood ties has changed over time. While once

blood was the means of obtaining both material and privilege, blood no longer guarantees that in

a society without caste or feudal hierarchy. Universally, it seems that it seems that people seek to

protect that which they believe belongs to them. This seems to be a constant throughout time, yet

in a biopolitical-capitalist world, for the bourgeoisie, it means to maintain its hold on its status:

one to which there is no divine right. In a situation where one needs to justify protecting that

which they believe belongs to them, Foucaults racism doesnt seem very far-fatched.

In the end, it seems that racism is not necessarily about those that do not look like you,

but about those who are not regular, who do not fit the prescribed mold. It is interesting to me

how the blood power is present in racism, if we consider it in terms of ethnicity while it is not

something Westerners necessarily seek to preserve, it can be used as a tool of otherizing and

discrimination. Furthermore, because humanity is at a point in its development where we feel

empowered to manage and optimize our existence, the question no longer seems to be that of

surviving, but thriving. How we go about in our attempts to thrive, though, seems to be a great

wellspring for conflict. Once we perceive those who are different as threatening this

optimization, it seems to open many doors for mistreatment and loss of respect. It strikes me as a

little paradoxical that a world so concerned with life places more value on some lives rather than

others, but perhaps it cant be helped considering humanitys intractable need for self-

preservation.

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Response 3

In Hannah Arendt's article, The Perplexities of the Rights of Man, she argues that the

concept of unalienable rights inherently paradoxical in reality. Once one loses their connection to

a government capable of protecting their rights, the individual effectively loses these rights,

despite the theoretical notion that even in such a stateless state one still possesses them. The

characters in Children of Men illustrate Arendt's conception. Additionally, Agamben's concept of

bare life is reflected in these stateless characters. To what degree, however, is debatable.

In her article, Arendt is interested in what is implicit by their declaration and the inherent

dynamics of their possession and loss. The importance of a community, in this respect, means

that the individual is capable of making his/her opinion known, heard, and acted upon (Arendt

88). Without the community, ones voice is rendered null. The refugees in the film are a natural

example of such marginalized individuals. For these people, the crumbling of their original

government has forced them to seek community elsewhere, ostensibly because they would not be

able to be protected under their own government. While the audience is not privy to the process

of loss of their nationhood, we do see the end result. The British state denies them protection,

rounding up the people in droves and taking them to camps, placing them in cages. The scene at

the camp into which Theo and Kee are smuggled in is very striking in that regard, depicting

barely-clothed huddled together and covered, dead bodies lying on the floor. This scene also

viscerally illustrates the idea of Agambens inclusive exclusivity: a space is created within

society for those who do not belong (Agamben 140).

Kee is a unique refugee, however, as they baby confers her an interesting degree of

protection. She is made valuable by being the last human on earth to carry a child, and by

possessing such a value she gains the role of the last mother thus, for the sake of the baby, she

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cannot be killed. At the same time, however, throughout the film she and her baby are constantly

being pulled to different sides, to belong to different alliances. In a way, Kee could be considered

as a type of slave as Arendt claims that slaves, despite lacking rights, still had a place within their

society (Arendt 89).

Despite having such a place in the world, whether or not Kee can be considered to have

more than bare life is questionable, however. To revisit the concept of bare life, Agamben

conceives of it as the life of homo sacer: one who may be killed and yet not sacrificed

(Agamben 140). This person does not belong within the established public society, thus lacks the

Aristotlian bios element of life. However, this does not render them dead as they still possess

zoe, which is intrinsic to all living creatures, human or animal. Women and children, in the

ancient Greek sensibility, did not have bios even though they certainly had a place in society:

within the oikos, the private sphere of the home. Given such context, the characterization of Kee

as an enslaved figure could constitute a kind of homo sacer, by definition lacking bios. However,

in a biopolitical world, this distinction between what belongs to the oikos and what belongs to

the political bios becomes blurry and, to Agamben, is constantly in question and in a state of flux

(148). Despite Kees state of relative powerlessness in her situation, she still possesses

sovereignty over the life of the baby. In a conversation with Theo, Kee discussed the possibility

of killing herself using the quietus pill, ending her life and that of the baby. It is possible I am

conflating the capacity for sovereignty with bios, but regardless such power does confer

additional depth to Kees character.

The baby itself is an interesting figure. It is at the mercy of her caretaker, and really has

nothing more than bare life it is far too young to have any agency itself. In discussing the

character, in fact, because I feel more inclined to call the baby an it rather than she/her, this

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signifies to me that the baby could be considered little more than a static illustration of zoe and

bare life. Additionally, the baby is not capable of wielding any sovereignty over anyone else

perhaps it can wield sovereignty by extension through whichever political group possesses the

baby as a symbol, but that may be a bit too far-fetched.

At the same time, where does Theo fall within this spectrum? The story introduces him as

a government employee, thereby conferring to him a sense of nationality and belonging.

However, he was a political activist in his youth, which evidences personal ideological resistance

to the status quo. Yet despite this disillusionment, through his occupation he is still making

contributions, however small, to the functioning of the bureaucracy and the perpetuation of the

system as it were. Once he is criminalized for the killing of the police officers, though, Theo

becomes an enemy of the state. He has thus relinquished or, rather, has been placed in a

situation where he has no choice but to relinquish the protection of the government, and is now

liable to be subjected to a state of exception.

Relative to the Theo, the Fishes are a rather similar entity. In fighting for the rights of

immigrants, where do those individuals belong? By committing terror crimes, they too are

criminalized, occupying a space outside of Britains legitimized public life. Their goals, however,

are to secure a new space for themselves and the refugees within the accepted society their

world: they seek to acquire bios. In a way, this speaks to me of the Foucauldian idea that there

cannot be power without resistance.

The audience sees very little of those who do have bios in this movie for example,

Theos cousin, Nigel. However, in the world of the film, it seems that anyone is capable losing

their protection once they are regarded as a threat or an outsider, and that nobody is unalienable

from their society. This, to me, is eerily resonant with themes present in our own world.

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Response 4

Brauns article on biopolitics and molecularization posed many engaging avenues of

thought for me, particularly regarding the ways in which caesuras can be created using the

understanding of the body as a molecular construction. As an individual that has studied

biochemistry and is pursuing a career in healthcare, this raises some chilling questions for myself

and the ethics of that upon which I seek to embark.

In his analysis of Roses piece, Braun highlights the perceived shift of state responsibility

for health (in a Foucauldian, macroscopic level of public health) to the individual. This suggested

to me that it is possible to create a new exclusive-inclusion of those whose access to proper

information is limited: in other words, the homo sacer would take the form of the individual who

would not be able to access the knowledge and resources necessary to make informed choices

and proactive measures in taking care of their health. This group of people could in part be made

up of the undereducated poor, emerging as perhaps another consequence of pre-existing racisms

and classisms.

This further suggests that it is possible to attribute blame to them rather than the greater

social picture for their ignorance, to depict the capacity to understand as something immutable

and intrinsic to the individual, not unlike the way in which Lisa Cacho relates the perception of

socioeconomic status and individual moral standing, creating a new category of already not-

valued others (Cacho 60). Whether or not such an uninformed group can be criminalized or

not is debatable, however, but I can imagine the sentiment they got what they deserved in

terms of poor health outcomes for the undereducated to possibly gain traction over time as the

wealth of knowledge and its accessibility through venues like the Internet increases. This would

be an interesting expansion upon the Foucauldian adage knowledge is power.

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Another type of homo sacer is manifested in the potential target of global health: those

that are othered because they might be deemed to harbor a biological threat a virtual one

(Braun 17) within their bodies on the basis of geography. As Braun puts it, in our efforts to

protect ourselves from potential harm, we attempt to control the biological lives of the villages in

which disease is thought to emerge, creating a normal-modern/pathological-primitive set of

distinctions (25). This was frightening to me, as these dichotomies smack of imperialistic

sentiment something from which I personally hoped that the West was finally beginning to

move away. It never occurred to me that it would be possible to use contemporary molecular-

biological knowledge to create new justifications for xenophobia. Then again, this is not

necessarily novel: pseudosciences like phrenology were certainly used to lend superiority to one

group over another. Perhaps I find it more difficult to swallow since the evidence by which we

use to support our theories is much more rigorously collected before it is put to practical use or

so I would like to think.

All the same, this highlights the dangers of using nascent science to make wide-ranging,

impactful decisions. Yet in Brauns article, biopolitics demands that the state is pre-emptive in

managing global threat to life, to protect against the threats that are both known and unknown

(15). In seeking to, so to speak, beat the curve, imperative is created to make discoveries, to

create new knowledge that might be useful in our crusade to sculpt our future into the best of all

possible futures. The pressure to find something new is often greater than the incentive to verify

and test what was already been established, leading to a wealth of unique causal statements with

limited discussion as to the veracity of each. This is a pitfall of scientific pursuit that Ive noticed

in my education, especially as one delves into increasingly specific topics requiring, in addition

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to highly specialized background on the subject, expensive investigative tools and methods. But I

digress.

Despite the differences in the origins of these two new kinds of homo sacer, the common

thread running between them is the us-and-them paradigm, and that this paradigm is reinforced

by the state. In a biopolitical world, the state seeks to control life at both the level of the

population and of the individual, with the murky teleology of creating an optimum state of

existence, or fitness. As in his discussion of Rose, Braun describes how such a fitness is

considered from a neoliberal stance, as ill-health interferes with the individuals ability to

function at his or her maximum capacity (11). With the first type the citizen who lacks the

resources to manage their own health it could be considered to the states benefit to assist them.

However, we the people are capable othering them by deciding that such individuals are not

worthy of help, as their very status infers that they are inherently undeserving. With the second,

the quarantined pathological-primitive other, we are seeking to protect ourselves from the threat

of the foreign unknown. It becomes acceptable to choose to exert limitations upon this group in

order to protect ourselves because, as they do not belong to us, they do not possess the same

rights. Even though this is a discussion on the biomolecularization of life, the way in which these

particular caesuras are created, at its core, seems to differ very little from the others that we have

previously discussed in class.

This whole article challenged my previous conceptions of global health protection as a

noble goal, and the means by which we hope to secure it. It also reminded me of the importance

of convention and how our models are always changing given new information or ways of

looking at our world. Now, the foremost question I find myself asking is what does it really

mean to do the best with what we have?

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Response 5

In Bloodchild, the relationship between humans and Tlic is a strange parable for the

concept of bare life. Humans can be imagined as homo sacer, both included and excluded at the

benefit of the dominant class. Yet because they serve such a vital role in the Tlic life cycle, the

boundary becomes blurry.

Humans are a necessity, yet they do not belong in the polis. Gatoi and her political faction

give the humans voice, but without them the humans would have little protection from being

used as chattel. Gan notes how, in his experiences outside the Preserve, he had witnessed the

desperate eagerness with which other Tlic looked at him as a resource for their children (Butler

5). The integration of families of different species is an attempt to mitigate the precarious

situation, to respect the humans as sentient life, but this construct does not necessarily allow the

humans to have much of a choice. The Tlic could easily overpower the humans physically, with

the relatively large bodies and sedative capacities.

Despite this, it is the Tlic who need the humans for the survival of their own species,

providing humans with a leverage not unlike that discussed by Ziarek: a situation that provides

the opportunity for homo sacer to create a site of contestation and possibility (Ziarek 98). This

leverage is exercised by Gan when he threatens to kill himself. There is risk in dealing with a

partner, (26) Gan reminds Gatoi as they argue, capitalizing on her need for him. The blocking of

the characters in this scene also conveys a reversal of power, with Gan in a standing position

over her while both holding the gun.

Additionally, this scene illustrates Foucaults concept of death as the limits of biopower:

the Tlics capacity, with respect to humans, to make live and let die they encourage humans to

reproduce as long as they provide a host, and they can allow the human NTlic to die and be

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consumed by the offspring is threatened once Gan gives himself the option of suicide, thus

removing himself from the entire schema and the Tlics ability to influence his choices.

Humans, despite their place in this society, are thus able to wield sovereignty over the

Tlic in their ability to limit their reproduction. For instance, had Gan denied Gatoi the chance to

impregnate him and somehow stopped her from reaching Hoa in time for her to lay her egg, Gan

could have prevented Gatois children from coming into being altogether. The health of these

future generations is also under the humans command, as Gan muses that Khotgif might have

been born from a non-human animal, given her illness and relatively weak constitution (Butler

18). Thus, for their own sake, it is imperative for the Tlic to maintain their control over the

human population, to make them into homo sacer.

Despite this need for dominance over the humans, one of the most gripping elements in

this story is that the human-Tlic relationship seems far more nuanced than that of master-slave.

The Tlic, and Gan uses the word people to describe Tlic he sees in the city (5). Gan is

reminded by his mother to take care of Gatoi, further characterizing the species as co-dependent.

Gatoi and other Tlic treat the humans with compassion and empathy, yet at the same time, it

comes off as if the humans were a sort of pet. They are often fed sterile eggs, putting them in a

state of sedation, and are identifiable by a tag worn on their arms (11). Yet the degree to which

human can be considered pets is skewed as Gatoi gives Gan agency in their situation. She feels

hurt as she realized that Gan did not chose her once he had learned the gruesome truth of

birthing Tlic.

It could be argued that the willful withholding of knowledge of this truth is the

mechanism by which the Tlic allow humans to both exercise free will as intelligent beings and to

cast them as bare life. This is most clearly illustrated by the attitudes of Gans siblings. Qui, on

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one hand, had witnessed a human allowed to die as he was giving birth to Tlic, thus becoming

unable to complicit in becoming a participant in the Tlics lifecycle. On the other hand, Xuan

Hoa, who had been shielded like many other humans from the truth, was gladly willing to fulfill

such a role in Gatois life, as Gatoi was a figure that may have very well been a second parent to

her. Again, this reverberates with Foucauldian concept of knowledge as power.

Gans father, however, could potentially provide a counter-argument to this: he had given

birth three times. Despite learning the truth after the first time, he continued to serve as a host.

How much agency he had remains an open-ended question, though, as Butler does not reveal

much more about him than that.

All the same, the integration of human and Tlic species is an intriguing mirror for the way

we, in real life, have created different caesuras between groups of people, particularly by race or

gender. For instance, women have the power to give birth, yet the degree to which they can

control pregnancy is challenged by restrictions on birth control, abortion, and other such

reproductive healthcare. Butler flips this on its head by making men the hosts of foreign life. Her

story also forces us to consider the refugee and how, by the loss of protection of their rights, they

can potentially be put into sub-human occupations in society. Relative to other readings we have

done, Butler has inverted our paradigm by narrating her story from the point of view of the homo

sacer himself. By doing this, she forces us to think about what it could be like for us to lose our

place in the polis and, perhaps more hauntingly, what it may already be like for whom it has

already been lost.

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Works Cited

Agamben, Giorgio. Introduction to Homo Sacer and The Politicization of Life. Biopolitics,

A Reader. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013. 134-151. Print.

Arendt, Hannah. The Perplexities of the Rights of Man. Biopolitics, A Reader. Durham and

London: Duke University Press, 2013. 82-98. Print.

Braun, Bruce. Biopolitics and the Molecularization of Life. Cultural Geographies 14.1 (2007):

6-28. Print.

Butler, Octavia. Bloodchild. Bloodchild and Other Stories. New York: Seven Stories Press,

1996. 3-32. Print.

Cacho, Lisa. Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected.

New York: NYU Press, 2012. Print.

Children of Men. Dir. Alfonso Cuarn. Universal Pictures, 2006. Film.

Foucault, Michel. Society Must Be Defended. Durham and London: Duke University Press,

2013. Print. 61-81.

Foucault, Michel. History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. New York: Random House, 1978.

Print.

Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. New York: Vintage International, 2005. Print

Spillers, Hortense. Mamas Baby, Papas Maybe: An American Grammar Book. Diacritics

17.2 (1987): 64-81. Print.

Ziarek, Ewa Plonowska. Bare Life on Strike. South Atlantic Quarterly 107.1 (2007): 89-105.

Print.

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