Mom-Bots and Cyborg Babies: Artificial Life and Artificial Reproduction in Contemporary Science Fiction Narratives

Abstract

This thesis addresses assisted reproductive technologies and their representation in contemporary science fiction narratives, positioning them as fundamentally interconnected in their co-constitution and situated within the current political debates surrounding reproductive rights. It is guided by the following research questions: How are negative representations of artificial life forms in science fiction film related to technophobic, heteronormative ideology associated with assisted reproductive technologies? What common threads can be identified between these representations and technologies and the real-world bodies and systems they are entangled with? Drawing on the cultural studies of science and technology, feminist media studies, gender studies, labour studies, and using a theoretical framework of the “cyborg” as a posthuman ontology, this thesis proceeds through several stages of interrogation, beginning with an exploration of assisted reproductive technologies and the complex social and ideological aspects at play in their development and use, connecting this to mass media representation through critical analyses of the 2017 films Alien: Covenant and Blade Runner 2049. Arguing these as an entanglement of interconnected factors shaping our reproductive landscape, this thesis works to make visible the role of these technologies in our society and how we speculate about their role in our futures through science fiction film.