Monica Sousa

This chapter looks at Emma Geen’s novel The Many Selves of Katherine North (2016) and considers the novel’s depiction and treatment of technologically engineered animal bodies called ResExtendas. The novel’s protagonist, Kit, works as a “phenomenaut” where she inhabits the bodies of lab-grown NHAs, known as ResExtendas, for research purposes. While retaining their own consciousness/higher brain functions, the phenomenauts share the cerebellum of the ResExtenda. Kit is faced with an ethical dilemma when ShenCorp, the company she works for, wants to create ResExtendas for “body tourism”—jumping into these animal bodies for entertainment purposes, rather than keeping the practice exclusively for research. This chapter looks at how Geen’s novel allows us to practice empathy toward animals and acknowledge that, in order to do so, we must be attentive to the way we are treating technologically engineered animals. In arguing for this empathy, this chapter contrasts the attitudes of ShenCorp and the body tourists with Kit’s beliefs regarding animal communications and various bodily identities.