Uncanny sex: cloning, photographic vision, and the reproduction of nature

Abstract

The prospect of cloning human beings is an issue that has taken center-stage in public concern over biotechnology in recent years. While a significant literature has emerged around many of the difficult questions that are raised here, this article argues that cloning also serves as a potent signifier of anxieties over the place of “sex” in the natural order of things. In analyzing this connection, it proposes that the idea of human cloning unsettles us in a way that may profitably be understood in terms of Sigmund Freud's account of the uncanny. To elucidate this claim, the article draws parallels between Roland Barthes’ ontology of photography, Judith Butler's theory of gender melancholia, and the fiction of Kazuo Ishiguro. In all three cases, repetitions of sex and death at the limit of knowledge point to the uncanniness of cloning and compel a reassessment of the relation of (hetero)sexual reproduction to our understanding of nature and life.