Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2008

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Abstract

Science fiction identifies three characteristics as definitive of and essential to humanity: 1) sentience or self-awareness, 2) emotions, and 3) most importantly, the capacity for sociability. Through the vital possession of these three traits any entity can come to be called human. In the first chapter, I examine Cordwainer Smith's "Scanners Live in Vain" and Samuel R. Delany's "Aye and Gomorrah...," two stories in which human subjects become Other than human. In the second chapter, I explore the prospect of creatures, not biologically human who gain human status through an analysis of Smith's "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" and Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? In the third chapter, I investigate the uniquely science fictional notion that "humanity" does not require biology through a comparison of H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau and William Gibson's Idoru.

Extent

vi, 53 p.

Comments

by Charles Barry Herzek.|Works Cited (p. 54), reflected in the Table of Contents, lacking from the University Library's copy.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008.|Includes bibliographical references based on the footnotes on pages 51-53.|Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, FL : 2008 Mode of access: World Wide Web.|by Charles Barry Herzek.

Identifier

FADT77644

Format

pdf

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