Biocapitalism and schizophrenia: rethinking the Frankenstein barrier

Deleuze and Guattari s becomings-animal are particularly useful in rethinking George Slusser s Frankenstein barrier : the point at which the sf story folds back upon itself through the denial of futurity, which is accompanied by a regression into Oedipal relations. By analyzing and contrasting Mary Shelley s Frankenstein and Vincenzo Natali s Splice, this essay argues that while the denial of futurity is Victor Frankenstein s as much as the monster s, the barrier is nevertheless an anthropocentric one. The essay examines the possibilities opened up by the becoming-animal of the nonhuman, and explores how this reworks the Frankenstein barrier in twenty-first century technoscientific biocapitalism.