This paper conducts an exploration of the post-Darwinian literary and philosophical imaginary through the topos of the island. Drawing upon philosophical reflections by Gilles Deleuze on the nature of material islands and their psychic function as fantasies of transcendence, I argue that the island takes on new significance in a post-Darwinian world by offering an image of human independence that is unavailable under the regime of biological evolution. By conducting comparative readings of Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island, Aldous Huxley's Island, Samuel Butler's Erewhon, and H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr Moreau, instigated by the critical apparatus developed with my reading of Deleuze, I establish the existence of a genealogy of post-Darwinian narratives in which the island facilitates a specifically utopian dream of individual autonomy, which is bound up with the ideology of capitalism. Taken together, I argue, these works emphasise the importance and complex position of the island in the post-Darwinian imaginary. In these works, islands neither allow for simplistic affirmations of such utopian, capitalist fantasies of human sovereignty nor deterministic pessimism, but explore critically these ideas as they co-exist in tension.

Although supporting and assessing the non-academic “impact” of research are not entirely new developments in higher education, academics and research institutions are under increasing pressure to produce work that has a measurable influence outside the academy. With a view to supporting the solution of complex societal issues with evidence and expertise, and against the background of increased emphasis on impact in the United Kingdom’s 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF2021) and a proliferation of impact guides and tools, this article offers a simple, easy to remember framework for designing impactful research. We call this framework: “The 7Cs of Impact” – Context, Communities, Constituencies, Challenge, Channels, Communication and Capture. Drawing on core elements of the Policy Institute at King’s College London’s Impact by Design training course and the authors’ practical experience in supporting and delivering impact, this paper outlines how this framework can help address key aspects across the lifecycle of a research project and plan, from identifying the intended impact of research and writing it into grants and proposals, to engaging project stakeholders and assessing whether the project has had the desired impact. While preparations for current and future REF submissions may benefit from using this framework, this paper sets out the “7Cs” with a more holistic view of impact in mind, seeking to aid researchers in identifying, capturing, and communicating how research projects can and do contribute to the improvement in society.

This article examines Houellebecq's two genomics novels, Les Particules élémentaires and La Possibilité d'une île and elaborates their relationship with Neo-Darwinian evolutionary naturalism and neoliberal capitalism. In these works, the mutual interdependence of these two regimes of thought both necessitates and makes possible the technology of human cloning, which promises humanity an escape from the misery of its own biological, political predicament. Houellebecq's work, I show, problematises this dialectic, and in doing so offers an incisive critique of utopian posthumanism, providing instead only an aporetic-but rigorously materialist-form of hope. RÉSUMÉ Cet article examine les deux romans génomiques de Houellebecq, Les Particules élémentaires et La possibilité d'une île, et développe leur rapport avec le naturalisme évolutionniste néo-darwinien et le néolibéralisme. Dans ces romans, l'interdépendance mutuelle de ces deux régimes de pensée nécessite et rend possible la technologie du clonage humain, qui promet à l'humanité d'échapper à la misère de sa propre situation politique et biologique. Je montre que l'oeuvre d'Houellebecq problématise cette dialectique et, ce faisant, offre une critique tranchant du posthumanisme utopique, ne fournissant au contraire qu'une forme d'espoir aporétiquemais rigoureusement matérialiste.Dès lors qu'une mutation métaphysique s'est produite, elle se développe sans rencontrer de résistance jusqu'à ses conséquences ultimes. Elle balaie sans même y prêter attention les systèmes économiques et politiques, les jugements esthétiques, les hiérarchies sociales. Aucune force humaine ne peut interrompre sons cours-aucune autre force que l'apparition d'une nouvelle mutation métaphysique.' -Michel Houellebecq, Les Particules élémentaires (1998, 10) Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. We can now revise that and witness the attempt to imagine capitalism by way of imagining the end of the world.

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