Dis/Corporatization: The Biopolitics of Prosthetic Lives and Posthuman Trauma in Ghost in the Shell Films

Authors

  • Donna T. Tong Department of English Language and Literature, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17742/IMAGE.OI.10.2.5

Keywords:

biopolitics, Oshii Mamoru, Ghost in the Shell, posthuman, cybernoir

Abstract

This paper explores the biopolitics both implicit and explicit in Mamoru Oshii’s film duology Ghost in the Shell. The prostheticization of life for Major Motoko Kusanagi is based upon an objectification of a cyborg self enabled and literalized through technology that is also a (mis)representation that conflates the biological self and technological self, and Oshii further problematizes this representation with the complication of the commodification and trafficking of posthuman lives, explicitly examined in more critical detail in the second film, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. In other words, Oshii arguably imagines the extreme end of biopower in a posthuman world as human trafficking structured by a globalized political economy.

Author Biography

Donna T. Tong, Department of English Language and Literature, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei

Donna T. Tong is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English Language and Literature at Fu Jen Catholic University in Taipei, Taiwan. Her research interests include Asian American literature, ethnic studies, gender studies, and film studies. She has published in Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, Wenshan Review, and Asian American Literary Review.

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Published

2020-03-30

How to Cite

Tong, D. T. (2020). Dis/Corporatization: The Biopolitics of Prosthetic Lives and Posthuman Trauma in Ghost in the Shell Films. Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies, 10(2), 119–152. https://doi.org/10.17742/IMAGE.OI.10.2.5

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 2 (2019): Open Issue

Section

Articles

License

Creative Commons License
This work by https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/imaginations is licensed under a  Creative Commons 4.0 International License although certain works referenced herein may be separately licensed, or the author has exercised their right to fair dealing under the Canadian Copyright Act.