Novel-based Social Research Using Posthumanism Theory

Abstract

This article was to describe novel-based social research. The descriptions consisted of explanation, reasoning and example to answer two research questions; why was a research on novel necessary to do? and how was a novel-based social research conducted? The explanations were based on the qualitative method that was certainly used in the research, and the reasonings were to clarify why researchers of social and humanities fields especially in language and literature departments should have done a research on a novel. This article gave an example of novel-based social research that was a best practice example conducted by the researcher. The chosen novel was Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. After doing a reading process, the researcher found keywords that became starting points of the analysis. To help making careful interpretation when doing the analysis, the researcher chose posthumanism ideas that question the existence of human thought, human existence, and the improvement of technology. Not only using posthumanism, this article used Antonio Gramsci’s ideas to find important events and phenomena contained in the novel. All ideas helped to find what the author, Aldous Huxley, wants to say to his readers.