In the third chapter, I continue my exploration of Posthumanist ethics through an analysis of Dominican author Rita Indiana’s Science Fiction trilogy-in-progress ( La mucama de Omicunlé, 2015, and Hecho en Saturno, 2018). The solution Montero’s trilogy offers to these problems is for theorists to move their attention away from the individual posthuman and towards non-individual, in-between forces like affect. In her failure to enact a Posthumanist ethics, Montero’s posthuman protagonist calls into question the tendency to center the subject in Posthumanist thought and also makes visible its tacit and dubious blending of constitution (ontology) and ethics. In the second chapter, I develop a critique of Posthumanist ethics that place the onus of ethical-political intervention on marginalized subjects through a close reading of Spanish author Rosa Montero’s Bruna Husky trilogy ( Lágrimas en la lluvia, 2011, El peso del corazón, 2015, Los tiempos del odio, 2018).

The first chapter of my dissertation is an overview of Posthumanist theory and Science Fiction, with a particular emphasis on the contributions Hispanic authors and women have made to the genre. My aim in doing so is to uncover the shortcomings of Posthumanist accounts of ethics and discover alternative paths forward. At the same time-and in lieu of these binaries-these texts propose and affirm developing a state of constant becoming and evolution based on a rhizomatic relationality among different subjectivities.In this dissertation I put Posthumanist theory in tension with the ‘lived’ experiences of the posthuman protagonists of two recent Science Fiction trilogies. In doing so, the narratives destabilize and resist heteropatriarchal structures that rely upon these binaries, such as the masculinist portrayals of female and nonbinary bodies, capitalist neoliberal environmental antagonism, and emphasis of dominance and alterity over solidarity and alliance work with Othered subjects-all of which find direct corollaries in social issues of contemporary Spain. Using theories of the posthuman, feminism, and biopower, this study analyzes how Spanish women’s science fiction actively disrupts hierarchical binaries and boundaries prevalent in the genre (male/female, nature/culture, organic/inorganic, human/nonhuman). Academic study on Spanish science fiction is scant, and even more so in the case of Spanish women’s science fiction.

This study examines works of women’s science fiction literature from Spain produced in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: Lágrimas en la lluvia and El peso del corazón, by Rosa Montero Consecuencias naturales, by Elia Barceló “Informe de aprendizaje,” by Sofía Rhei “La plaga,” by Felicidad Martínez “Casas Rojas,” by Nieves Delgado and “Yo, cuqui,” by Laura López Alfranca.

Lágrimas en la lluvia by Rosa Montero