Change of heart : animality, power, and Black posthuman enhancement in Malorie Blackman's Pig-Heart Boy / Emma Trott.

Format:

Journal/Periodical

Author/Creator:

Trott, Emma, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Group identity.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Annual

2024.

Other Title:

Change of heart

Place of Publication:

Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.

Summary:

As cardiac xenotransplantation moves from labs into hospitals, this chapter asks what Malorie Blackman's young adult novel Pig-Heart Boy reveals about power, race, and identity in relation to the experimental therapy. Common heart metaphors are analyzed to ask how the xenograft shapes the teenage protagonist's developing selfhood, challenges species boundaries, and conceptualizes a move to the posthuman. While a greater appreciation of biological correspondences between creatures has the potential to challenge anthropocentrism, this can be disrupted by power imbalance, producing not empathy but the development of bioresources. Pig-Heart Boy's protagonist is a Black British boy who understands that power is inherent to ethical debates about xenotransplantation, and he draws parallels between racism and speciesism. While the novel's opportunities to fully critique shared power structures are not taken, this chapter suggests that this Black child's agency in choosing to be the first to receive cutting-edge treatment reimagines histories of abusive experiments on Black bodies and positively speculates on a society without structural health inequities. Acknowledging the complexities in Black posthumanism, this chapter argues that Pig-Heart Boy shows the potential for Black enhancement within posthumanist futures.

Contents:

Introduction

Posthuman Bodies and Postspecies Boundaries

Anthropocentrism, Rights, and Power

Animalized Beings and The Dreaded Comparison

The Promise of Black Enhancement

Conclusion

Works Cited.

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (NCBI Journal, viewed June 16, 2025).