“Absolute Alterity”? The Alien Animal, the Human Alien, and the Limits of Posthumanism in Star Trek1

Abstract

As humanity defines itself through an animal other, one could likewise claim that the human in sf texts is demarcated by being non-alien. This viewpoint establishes an intimate connection between alien and animal, both representing the other, that which, in Jacques Derrida’s definition of “absolute alterity,” cannot return the human gaze. While one might expect that this absolute alterity harbors the posthuman potential for overcoming the species boundary through an alien-animal bond, the interactions between alien and animal alterns in Star Trek actually belie the franchise's utopian promise of multispecies community. Examining alien-pet relations in Star Trek: The Original Series, The Animated Series, and The Next Generation through a triangular structure of interconnected becomings, this paper argues that, while convergent and divergent becomings complicate established dualisms, the affective alien-pet interrelations in Star Trek ultimately effect a becoming-human for humanoid aliens while they mark the nonhuman animal as absolute other. Complementing Star Trek scholarship that calls the series’ status as inclusive utopia into question, this article likewise unmasks Star Trek as a distinctly humanist utopia that eventually promotes an anthropocentric position in the representation of animals as much as in the representation of other alterns.