Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture

Description

The time has come for human cultures to seriously think, to severely conceptualize, and to earnestly fabulate about all the nonhuman critters we share our world with, and to consider how to strive for more ethical cohabitation. Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture tackles this severe matter within the framework of literary and cultural studies. The emphasis of the inquiry is on the various ways actual and fictional nonhumans are reconfigured in contemporary culture – although, as long as the domain of nonhumanity is carved in the negative space of humanity, addressing these issues will inevitably clamor for the reconfiguration of the human as well. Contents List of Figures List of Contributors Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman: Striving for More Ethical Cohabitation • Sanna Karkulehto, Aino-Kaisa Koistinen, Karoliina Lummaa, and Essi Varis Part 1: Toward Posthumanist Literature and Posthumanist Reading 1 On the Possibility of a Posthuman/ist Literature(s) • Carole Guesse 2 Posthumanist Reading: Witnessing Ghosts, Summoning Nonhuman Powers • Karoliina Lummaa 3 Becoming-instrument: Thinking with Jeff Vander Meer’s Annihilation and Timothy Morton’s Hyperobjects • Kaisa Kortekallio Part 2: Imagining Aliens and Monsters 4 A lien Overtures: Speculating about Nonhuman Experiences with Comic Book Characters • Essi Varis 5 Playing the Nonhuman: Alien Experiences in Aliens vs. Predator • Jonne Arjoranta 6 Wild Things Squeezed in the Closet: Monsters of Children’s Literature as Nonhuman Others • Marleena Mustola and Sanna Karkulehto Part 3: Becoming with Animals 7 Dead Dog Talking: Posthumous, Preposthumous, and Preposterous Canine Narration in Charles Siebert’s Angus • Mikko Keskinen 8 Carnivorous Anatomies: Art and Being Beasts • Brad Bolman 9 Reconfiguring Human and Nonhuman Animals in a Guiding Assemblage: Toward Posthumanist Conception of Disability • Hana Porkertová Part 4: Technological (Co-)Agencies 10 Meeting the Machine Halfway: Toward Non-Anthropocentric Semiotics 8 Cléo Collomb and Samuel Goyet 11 Journeys in Intensity: Human and Nonhuman Co-Agency, Neuropower, and Counterplay in Minecraft • Marleena Huuhka 12 Cyborganic Wearables: Sociotechnical Misbehavior and the Evolution of Nonhuman Agency • Patricia Flanagan and Raune Frankjær Part 5: Afterword: Unnarratable Matter? 13 Unnarratable Matter: Emergence, Narrative, and Material Ecocriticism • Juha Raipola Index