ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Beggars trilogy by feminist science fiction writer Nancy Kress, concentrating particularly on the first novel, Beggars in Spain. It begins with the proposition that bioethics is at an impasse. The chapter considers what science fiction might contribute not only to a critical understanding of particular bioethical issues, in this instance, the convergence of genetics and neoliberal politics, but to a re-imagining of the bioethics field itself. In this context, genes and cinematic convention constitute inter-referential frames of intelligibility for bodies as they articulate with politics, technology, identity and intersubjective relations. Nancy Kress published the Beggars trilogy, beginning with Beggars in Spain in 1993, Beggars and Choosers in 1994, and Beggars Ride. In the Beggars world, the functions of sleep and sleeplessness are both reversed and, significantly, articulated through a distinctly neoliberal moral discourse concerning the nexus of bodies, work, and value.
