Caruth, Cathy. “Unclaimed Experience: Trauma and the Possibility of History.” Yale French Studies, no. 79, 1991, pp. 181–92. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2930251. Accessed 14 Dec. 2025.

Caruth explores trauma as an experience that is not fully assimilated at the moment it occurs, returning later in fragmented and repetitive forms. She argues that trauma challenges conventional historical narration, opening new possibilities for understanding history through belatedness, memory, and testimony.

Woolf, Virginia. Modern Fiction. Maulana Azad College, https://maulanaazadcollegekolkata.ac.in/pdf/open-resources/VWoolfModernFiction.pdf. Accessed 14 Dec. 2025.

In this essay, Woolf critiques materialist realism and advocates for a modernist approach that captures the fluidity of consciousness and inner life. She emphasizes subjective perception, memory, and psychological depth as central to representing reality in modern fiction.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak? 1988, https://voidnetwork.gr/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Can-the-subaltern-speak-by-Gayatri-Spivak.pdf. Accessed 14 Dec. 2025.

Spivak interrogates whether marginalized, colonized subjects can truly have a voice within dominant epistemological and political structures. She concludes that the subaltern is often spoken for rather than heard, highlighting the ethical limits of representation and intellectual mediation.

Britt, Lucy, and Wilson H. Hammett, ‘Trauma as Cultural Capital: A Critical Feminist Theory of Trauma Discourse’, Hypatia, 39 (2024), 916–33 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/hyp.2024.22> Accessed 15 Dec. 2025.

This article critiques the contemporary circulation of trauma narratives as forms of cultural and symbolic capital. From a feminist perspective, the authors examine how trauma discourse can both empower marginalized voices and risk commodification or hierarchical valuation of suffering.

Dudley, Jack. “Beckett, Atwood, and Postapocalyptic Tragicomedy.” Novel, vol. 54, no. 1, 2021, pp. 104–119, Duke University Press. JSTOR, doi:10.1215/00295132-8868833. 

Dudley analyzes how postapocalyptic fiction employs tragicomedy to address trauma, survival, and existential uncertainty. Through Beckett and Atwood, the essay shows how humor and absurdity function as ethical and aesthetic responses to catastrophic worlds.

Baelo-Allué, Sonia, and Dolores Herrero Granado. “Between the Urge to Know and the Need to Deny: Trauma and Ethics in Contemporary British and American Literature.” Heidelberg: C. Winter., 2011.

This collection examines the ethical tensions involved in representing trauma in contemporary literature. The essays explore how narrative strategies negotiate between witnessing traumatic histories and acknowledging the limits of knowledge and representation.

​​Kumar, Abhishek. “Redefining Reality: A Modernist Perspective on Identity, Memory and Perception in the Writings of Virginia Woolf.” International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI), vol. 12, no. 5, 2025, pp. 829–833, doi:10.51244/IJRSI.2025.12050080.

Kumar analyzes Woolf’s modernist techniques to show how identity and reality are shaped by memory and subjective perception. The article situates Woolf’s work within modernist aesthetics, emphasizing fragmentation, interiority, and psychological realism.

Haveman, Robert, and Timothy Smeeding. “The Role of Higher Education in Social Mobility.” The Future of Children, vol. 16, no. 2, 2006, pp. 125–50. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3844794.

Havermen and Smeeding found out that the only way to have an education is to be very financially well off. In most cases, the cost of college isn’t an easy budget to go through. With this view, we see that education after high school benefits wealthier families than lower-income families.

Hess, Frederick M., and Michael Q. McShane. “Common Core in the Real World.” The Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 95, no. 3, 2013, pp. 61–66. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23611816.

Frederick and McShane talk about how the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) made schools harder than the normal standards. Some disagree on this fact about how it affects students falling behind and teachers speeding up their lectures to these kids, and fail. This CCSS plan can backtrack if one lesson is missing or even rushed.

Polleck, Jody N., and Jill V. Jeffery. “Common Core Standards and Their Impact on Standardized Test Design: A New York Case Study.” The High School Journal, vol. 101, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1–26. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/90024223.

Jody and Jeffery see a pattern through the course of the Common Core program. We, the students, don’t get the chance to learn anything much unless it’s part of the test. Teachers try to focus on what’s important through the test and not what a student should know before graduating and heading for college. “Let us learn from the mistakes of the past, not continue to replicate them.” (pg 20)

SCLAFANI, SUSAN. “No Child Left Behind.” Issues in Science and Technology, vol. 19, no. 2, 2002, pp. 43–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43312298.

Suaun talks about how this program focuses on students who are falling behind in their education and, by helping them improve, provides steps to help them succeed. Check how they are in class, see their own standards, parents picking the school for their child, and see what fits best for a student to be in the classroom environment. In order to see how they are in class, they must provide the student with tests to see their level of education and knowledge.

When doing the research, when trying to go to one search, Google Scholar didn’t make me like any of the articles or feel comfortable using them. One search had a lot of information I could use, but it wasn’t to my liking, while Google Scholar made me iffy on what I could use or not, or even be able to back up my research paper. I have been using JSTOR ever since I was introduced to the website. Makes me feel more comfortable and know that it’s an article that isn’t from a weird website like Google Scholar offers.

Research Question: How does Atwood position Crake’s act of remaking the world within the larger patterns of social and cultural damage caused by corporate and institutional forces? Where does Crake mirror the values of his age, and where does he resist or subvert them?

Argument: Crake’s destruction/creation is not true resistance—rather, it is the ultimate expression of the corporate, technocratic values that already define his society.

*I had two sources that I could not cite. Also, it was quite difficult to pick out the best articles for my paper, but I was able to pick the best ones. Although, some sources might be subject to change—if needed. 

Chen, Chien-Hung. “Subjectal scale and micro-biopolitics at the end of the anthropocene: Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam Trilogy.” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, vol. 51, no. 3, Sept. 2018, pp. 179–198, https://doi.org/10.1353/mos.2018.0037. 

https://www-jstor-org.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/stable/26974117?sid=primo&seq=1

• Chen explains that corporations in the novels use genetic engineering to manage life itself, shaping people, animals, and ecosystems to fit their goals. I can use this argument to explain Crake’s plan works in the exact same way; he tries to “fix” humanity by redesigning their biology, which mirrors the corporate micro-control the article describes. Chen also argues that Atwood’s world shows how individuals absorb and internalize the values around them, which helps explain why Crake thinks he is doing something logical and necessary rather than destructive. Crake’s remake of the world continues the same biopolitical logic that corporations already use, rather than breaking away from it.

Kroon, Ariel. “Reasonably insane: affect and crake in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and crake.” Canadian Literature, no. 226, autumn 2015, p. 18. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A462787735/AONE?u=cuny_hunter&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=6f18de97. Accessed 8 Dec. 2025.

https://go-gale-com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=cuny_hunter&id=GALE%7CA462787735&v=2.1&it=r&aty=ip

• I was glad to stumble upon this article because I had a hard time finding articles that particularly explored Crake’s character. Kroon describes how Crake’s “rational” way of thinking makes him seem controlled and intelligent, but actually leads him to make cold, destructive decisions. It shows that Crake’s creation of the Crakers and his destruction of humanity are not acts of rebellion or resistance—they come from his emotional emptiness and detachment from others. The article also explains that Crake believes emotions make humans weak and irrational, which helps justify his violent solution to human problems. Kind of like how Crake’s personality mirrors the cold, corporate world around him, rather than challenging it.

Kozioł, Sławomir. “From Sausages to Hoplites of Ham and Beyond: The Status of

          Genetically Modified Pigs in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy.” Papers on

          Language & Literature, vol. 54, no. 3, July 2018, pp. 261–95. EBSCOhost,

          research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=07978dd3-6cbc-3bf4-ae2e-9904de66c84e.

https://research-ebsco-com.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/c/lyrnq6/viewer/pdf/4mv3zzejxz?route=details

• This article talks about genetically modified pigs in Atwood’s trilogy revealing the dangerous mindset of a society that treats living beings as corporate products. Kozioł explains that the pigoon show how corporations believe they have the right to redesign life for commercial gain. Crake grows up inside this same logic and eventually applies it to humans themselves when creating the Crakers. Genetic engineering in the novel is less about helping society and more about expanding corporate control.

Ray, Swagata S. “Speculative Fiction, Biocapitalism and being Tentacular: Reading the MaddAddam Trilogy as Posthuman Saga.” New Literaria, vol. 3, no. 1, 2022, pp. 106-119. ProQuest, http://proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/speculative-fiction-biocapitalism-being/docview/2674049506/se-2,   doi:https://doi.org/10.48189/nl.2022.v03i1.012. 

• Using this article, I obtained the term “biocapitalism,” meaning companies treat biology as a product for profit. To show how companies treat genes, bodies, animals, and even entire species as resources, just like money or machinery. Under biocapitalism, science and capitalism work together: corporations use biotechnology to create new forms of life (like the pigoons or ChickieNobs) and then profit from them.

SCHMEINK, LARS. “The Anthropocene, the Posthuman, and the Animal.” Biopunk Dystopias: Genetic Engineering, Society and Science Fiction, Liverpool University Press, 2016, pp. 71–118. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ps33cv.6. Accessed 8 Dec. 2025.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ps33cv.6?searchText=%28%28%28Crake%29+AND+%28Genetic+engineering%29%29+AND+%28Maddaddam%29%29&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Fq0%3DCrake%26q1%3DGenetic%2Bengineering%26f0%3Dall%26c1%3DAND%26f1%3Dall%26acc%3Don%26c2%3DAND%26q2%3DMaddaddam%26f2%3Dall%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fspellcheck_basic_search%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ab82d3d76500f56defb71a1495bff5845&seq=1

• Oryx and Crake shows a world where humans have pushed nature to the breaking point through corporate science, greed, and carelessness. The chapter’s discussion of “posthuman” ideas helps explain how Crake tries to create a new kind of human that avoids the flaws of the old one. Supporting my claim that Crake is both shaped by his world and trying to resist its destructive tendencies. With his project fitting into a bigger pattern of humans trying—and failing—to control nature and redefine humanity in response to environmental damage.

*Manifesting Extinctathon: Virtual Reality and Terrorism in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake by Hodge, Patricia Mary

https://openurl.ebsco.com/EPDB%3Agcd%3A16%3A1085296/detailv2?sid=ebsco%3Aplink%3Ascholar&id=ebsco%3Agcd%3A155700174&crl=c&link_origin=scholar.google.com

https://gmj.manipal.edu/issues/JUNE2021/S3Manifesting%20Extinctathon%20Virtual%20Reality%20and%20Terrorism%20in%20Margaret%20Atwood%E2%80%99s%20Oryx%20and%20Crake.pdf

• This was also one of the sources I really found helpful because it dives into Extinctathon, where we saw the effects of it on Crake (or rather emphasized his tendencies). Hodge argues that the game trains players to detach from real-world consequences, treating violence, extinction, and destruction as strategic moves rather than moral decisions. In a way we can see that these corporate values not only apply to the real world but also the digital. The article also explains how technology blurs the line between play and reality, making Crake’s global “reset” feel like just another level of the game.

Dos Santos, Sara,Catarina Melo. (Un)Making the (Post)Human : Biopolitics and the Corporatization of the Body in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, Universidade de Lisboa (Portugal), Portugal, 2016. ProQuest, http://proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/un-making-post-human-biopolitics-corporatization/docview/3110427112/se-2. 

• Dos Santos argues that in Oryx and Crake, human bodies are treated like products that corporations can shape, sell, and control. Crake’s plan to “remake” humanity follows the same mindset—he designs the Crakers as if they are corporate projects, not living beings with freedom. The article makes it clear that the society in the novel already reduces life to something market-driven, and Crake simply takes this logic to the extreme. We also touch upon biopolitics which I think could help with my paper. Dos Santos explains how biopolitics allows institutions to quietly manage populations.

*NEOLIBERAL BIOPOLITICS IN MARGARET ATWOOD’S ORYX AND CRAKE by Venla Venäläinen

https://trepo.tuni.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/120803/Ven%C3%A4l%C3%A4inenVenla.pdf

• Venäläinen reads the novel through biopolitics, arguing that neoliberalism shapes bodies, desires, and populations. Her thesis stresses that institutions produce subjects who unconsciously replicate the values of the system. This can reinforce how Crake imagines himself as a revolutionary, but he is actually the perfect biopolitical subject, reproducing the logic of control, optimization, and population management. Crake does not break free of institutional values, he recasts them in technocratic terms (meaning: relating to or characterized by the government or control of society or industry by an elite of technical experts).

Research Question: In what ways does Oryx and Crake connect traditional gender with how they bleed into patterns of violence, consumer culture, and emotional detachment within late-capitalist culture

Annotated Bibliography:

Franks, Nadia-Terese Laguna. “‘Belief Rather Than a Memory’: The Relationship Between Gender and Trauma in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.” C21 Literature, vol. 11, no. 1, 2024, p. Volume 11 • Issue 1 • 2024 • Spring-Summer 2024,

https://doi.org/10.16995/c21.8735.

In this article, Nadia-Terese Laguna explores how Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake explores topics like traditional gender norms and trauma within a post 9/11 dystopia. She depicts the gender binary as a social construct that is a trauma driven tool used to reinforce patriarchal control while masking suffering both as an individual and a collective feeling. Her analysis reveals how late capitalism weaponized the gender binary to sustain a hierarchical power and fosters alienation and emotional numbness. Through the use of a male protagonist’s struggles with toxic masculinity and the commodification of femininity, she argues how gender roles enable acting out, violence, and ecological devastation that in turn fosters emotional detachment. Thus, this article is a great source that gives us a view into feminist trauma for understanding gender roles in connection with violence, consumption, and an emotional disconnect in a dystopian future. 

Martín, Javier. “Dystopia, Feminism and Phallogocentrism in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake.” Open Cultural Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2019, pp. 174–81,

https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2019-0015. 

In this article, Javier Martin explores how Margart Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake portrays a world where male dominant thinking and sexual control lead to the progress of dangerous scientific ideas and damage to our environment, showing a culture that is obsessed with putting a price on the human body and suppressing empathy among ourselves. Martin uses feminist theory and Derrida’s concept of phallogocentrism to argue that Atwood’s dystopia is a critique on male dominated systems of knowledge and power. In this novel men such as Crake are the embodiment of sexual objectification, using hyper-rational logic that leads to destruction, while women such as Oryx resisted these norms through showing a victimized point of view, creating a powerful space. This dynamic offers a theoretical framework that can be used to analyze gendered power structures and how they influence scientific ambition and ecological collapse within the novel.

Siemann, Catherine. “Science, Gender and History: The Fantastic in Mary Shelley and Margaret Atwood.” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 27, no. 1 (95), International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, 2016, pp. 170–72.

This review by William Tringali on Science, Gender, and History analyzes traditional gender norm roles and how they confine women, linking such norms to violence, emotional detachment, and systemic control which are all themes especially present in Margaret Atwood’s other work The Handmaid’s Tale and in Oryx and Crake. These books’ connection to male driven scientific transgression within a late capitalist consumption culture shows how gendered violence and emotional estrangement sustain the dominant economic nature. Tringali’s work provides a valuable framework into understanding the culture and historical forces surrounding gendered experience in such dystopian narratives. 

Ismael, Henir, and Hasan Saleh. “The discursive strategies of power and female resistance in Margaret Atwood’s the handmaid’s tale: a foucauldian reading.” Govara zanistîn mirovayeti ya-Zankoya Zaxo, vol. 11, no. 3, 2023, pp. 555–61, https://doi.org/10.26436/hjuoz.2023.11.3.1096.

This article explores how Atwood exposes how within traditional gender norms there is violence embedded that shows how women’s bodies have become tools used for political control and economic value. The author argues that the novel reveals how systems of power use elements like discipline, surveillance, and sexual regulation to enforce ideas such as female objectification and emotional detachment. Even though the main focus on this article is in Atwood’s other work The Handmaid’s Tale, it can still be used to support the research question since it demonstrates how Atwood constantly links patriarchal gender expectations to the theme of the commodification of bodies and the suppression of empathy within the late capitalist structure.

Kaličanin, Milena M., and Marija Nešić. “THE KATABASIS TROPE AND A DESCENT INTO FUTURE IN MARGARET ATWOOD’S THE HANDMAID’S TALE.” Društvene i Humanističke Studije (Online), vol. XXIV, no. 24, 2023, pp. 279–94.

This article looks into The Handmaid’s Tale, showing how Atwood uses a katabasis structure to expose violence produced by patriarchal gender norms. The author argues that that having such a strict control over women’s bodies, reproduction, and identity reflect an extreme extension of late-capitalist consumption where women have become a resource to be used rather than separate individuals to be cared for. This descent structure is used to underscore the psychological and political oppression of women while also revealing other paths to renewal or even resistance. Yet again, even though it’s not directly related to Oryx and Crake, this article still contributes to the historical view of how gendered suffering and dystopian futures interact in works made by Atwood. 

I changed my research question since i didn’t like the other one. I want to thank you again for giving me an extension. I went to the doctor and it got SLIGHTLY better, but then i got worse and now I’m sick in bed again. I have medicine now and I hope this goes away soon. 🙁