Orphan black: performance, gender, biopolitics

Presents a groundbreaking exploration of the hit television series "Orphan Black," and the questions it raises for performance and technology, gender and reproduction, and biopolitics and community. Contributors from a range of background explore the digital innovations and technical interactions between human and machine that allow the show to challenge conventional notions of performance and identity. The essays within address family themes and explore "Orphan Black's" own textual genealogy; extend their inquiry to the broader question of community in a "posthuman" world of biopolitical power by looking at the contexts of science, reproductive technology and the politics of gender; and finally, mobilize philosophy, history of science and literary theory in order to analyze the ways in which "Orphan Black" depicts resistance to the many forms of power that attempt to capture, monitor and shape life today.

Acknowledgements -- Introduction / Andrea Goulet and Robert A. Rushing. Part 1 Performance/technology/gender : Gesture in "Orphan Black" / David F. Bell -- Playing with technodollies: the TV actress and other technologies / Christopher Grobe -- Animating cloning: special effects and mediated bodies in "Orphan Black" and "Jurassic Park" / Simon Porzak -- Watching while (face) blind: clone layering and prosopagnosia / Sharrona Pearl. Part 2 Reproduction/biopolitics/community : Game of clones: "Orphan Black's" family romance / John C. Stout -- "Orphan Black" and the ideology of DNA / Hilary Neroni -- Being together: immunity and community in "Orphan Black" / Jessica Tanner -- The dancing women: decoding biopolitical fantasy / Robert A. Rushing -- The replicant's "réplique": motherhood and posthuman family as resistance in "Orphan Black" / Andrea Goulet. Afterword: reflections on the show, and interviews with cast, crew and creators / Lili Loofbourow. Appendix: "Orphan Black" episodes -- References -- Notes on contributors -- Index.