Future Imperfect: Transhumanism and the Marginalised Body in Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein: A Love Story

Abstract

What space do transhumanist futures make for marginalised, nonnormative bodies? Reading Jeanette Winterson’s transhumanist retelling of Frankenstein, Frankissstein: A Love Story (2019), for its treatment of marginalised bodies within the narrative, I will argue that the visions of new, bold models of embodiment offered by transhumanism within the novel ultimately fail to protect those whose bodies are already marginalised by the hegemonic heteropatriarchal frameworks of sexuality and gender. For those existing outside of the norms of embodiment, transhumanist futures promise not a welcome reprieve from bodily violence, but rather an ever more targeted and efficient method of subjugation.