Nonhuman Agencies in the Twenty-First-Century Anglophone Novel

Description

This book offers an overview on the growing field of nonhuman studies in relation to Anglophone novels. It illuminates the variety of nonhuman actors that take centre stage in the twenty-first-century novel and the formal changes that the Anthropocene, the digital turn, the animal rights movement, and research into plant consciousness have brought to the novel as a form. The book is divided into four sections, each focusing on a different aspect of twenty-first-century literature that engages with the nonhuman. The collection investigates how the environmental changes and the increasing use of  AI technologies  have fostered the  flourishing  of genres  like the  New Weird, Climate Fiction, and speculative fiction, how it makes us embrace new  perceptions of  life in  relation to  genetic  engineering, and how it forces us to engage with newly emerging political contexts. Preface: About the Book Acknowledgements Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures Introduction: Narrating the Nonhuman Approaches to the Nonhuman The Nonhuman and the Novel Form Chapter Overview References Section I: Nonhuman Poetics: Agency of Literary Forms Forms of Agency, Agency of Forms: Reading and Teaching More-Than-Human Fictions Introduction: Making Words Matter From Representations to Entanglement Rooting Intertextual Agencies in Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend (2018) Teaching More-Than-Human Intertextual Relationality References Nonhuman Agencies in and of Literature: Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s The Dragonfly Sea Introduction The Agency of Matter and Flat Ontologies Nonhuman Agencies in and of Literature More-Than-Human-Worlds in The Dragonfly Sea: Oceanic Cartographies Multispecies Interdependencies Reading with the Ocean References Deontologising the Nonhuman: Arthur Gordon Pym, Contemporary Literature, and the Limits of the Human Introduction: The Nonhuman at Peak Humanity The Nonhuman in Theory: Three Snapshots Literature at the Limits of the Human: The Afterlives of Arthur Gordon Pym Conclusion: Literature and the Dynamics of De-/Re-/In-/Non-/ …-humanisation References Section II: Negotiating the Human in the Light of the Nonhuman Anthropogenesis: Ian McEwan’s Fictions of the Human Introduction The Human and Its Others Literary Fiction as Anthropology Encapsulating the Human: Nutshell Problems of Scale: Solar Human Technology: Machines Like Me Conclusion References Arctic Snowmobilities: Encounters with Sled Dogs in Gary Paulsen’s Winterdance Introduction Moving with Sled Dogs Moving in/on Snow: Mapping Arctic Space Human: Nonhuman Encounters—Moving Between Identity Positions Conclusion References Reframing the Nonhuman: Grievability and the Value of Life in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go Introduction Encountering Alterity: The Process of Reframing in Never Let Me Go Stories that Touch Us: Affective Storytelling in Never Let Me Go Conclusion References Hopeless Necromantics: Decomposition and Transcorporeal Love in Jim Crace’s Being Dead Introduction Life After Death: Decomposition, Transcorporeality, and (Non)Human Agency Surviving the Death of Cells: Necromantic Corpses and Transcorporeal Love Wisdom Widely Honest: Being Dead’s Necropoetics and Epistemic Accessibility Conclusion References Section III: Imagining Biocentric Communities The Gender Politics of Trees Introduction Men, Women, and Trees How to See a Tree Arboreal Communities Conclusion References ‘Mycorrhizal Multiplicities’: Mapping Collective Agency in Richard Powers’s The Overstory Introduction: Trees Talk Theoretical (Under)ground Work Organisation: Mapping Networks Composition: Mycorrhizal Messaging Conclusion References The Climate Crisis and Affective Nonhuman Encounters: Ali Smith’s Autumn (2016) and Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 (2017) Introduction Climate Change: Not a Good Story Affective Nonhuman Encounters Ali Smith’s Autumn Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 Conclusion References Postcolonial Fictions of the Anthropocene: Tracing Nonhuman Agency in Shubhangi Swarup’s Latitudes of Longing Introduction: Of Binaries and Multiplicities Postcolonial and Ecocritical Convergence in Human-Nonhuman Relations Shubhangi Swarup’s Latitudes of Longing (2020) “Ocean, Sea, Ice Snow, Mist”: Water as an Interconnective Force Conclusion References Section IV: Negotiating Reality: Approaching the Nonhuman’s Inescapable Alterity Cthulhu Calling: Weird Intimacy and Estrangement in the Anthropocene The Weird in Theory “The Willows”: Participation and Alienation Annihilation: Empathy and Ecstasy Conclusion References “Just a Surface”: Anamorphic Perspective and Nonhuman Narration in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Strange Bird Introduction Anamorphic Anthropo(s)cenes Three Turns Scales, Depths, Surfaces Affect, Agency, Affirmation Conclusion References “All Life Matters, or None Does”: Connecting Human and Nonhuman Worlds in Ambelin Kwaymullina’s The Tribe Series Introduction “Spirits that Matter”: Kwaymullina’s Aboriginal Young Adult Fiction in the Context of Current Literary and Cultural Theory Unheard Voices: Forging Connections with the Firstwood, the Saurs, and Other Living Creatures Human, AI, Machine, and Cyber-Dog: Synthetic Life as Part of the Entangled Whole Conclusion References Index