The House of Pain: The Island of Dr. Moreau and Post/Trans/ Humanism Today

Abstract

H. G. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) is a bleak critique of the Victorian notion that evolution can provide
ethical or social guidance to humanity. This essay reads the novel in the context of the contemporary debate between posthumanism
and transhumanism. By applying theoretical models derived from Braidotti, Agamben, Wolfe and others, the essay argues that
Wells’ evolutionary antihumanism provides a corrective to both critical posthumanism’s attempts to articulate a nonanthropocentric ethics, and to transhumanism’s dreams of transcending humanity. The essay considers the chronotope of an island
polity in the context of evolutionary antihumanism by comparing Wells’ novel with the contemporary biotech thriller Island 731
(2013) by Jeremy Robinson.