Toward a Poetics of Posthumanist Narrative Using Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being
Author(s)
Lovell, Susan
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2018
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
In the Anthropocene, social identities have become globally technologized, mediatized, and medicalized more than ever before, so “ordinary” people become complicit in forms of becoming detrimental to their well-being, but profitable for a few. In this article, I argue that Posthumanist narratives use various discursive strategies to generate shifts in readers that form, or bring to consciousness, a sense of already being Posthuman. Part one locates the novel in relation to critical posthumanism, and part two explicates the narrative devices that facilitate critical posthuman consciousness. Part three offers brief thoughts ...
View more >In the Anthropocene, social identities have become globally technologized, mediatized, and medicalized more than ever before, so “ordinary” people become complicit in forms of becoming detrimental to their well-being, but profitable for a few. In this article, I argue that Posthumanist narratives use various discursive strategies to generate shifts in readers that form, or bring to consciousness, a sense of already being Posthuman. Part one locates the novel in relation to critical posthumanism, and part two explicates the narrative devices that facilitate critical posthuman consciousness. Part three offers brief thoughts about how to more fully explore critical posthumanist narrative because this article is but a step toward thinking about what may be relevant to Posthumanist narrative practices. Indeed, it is arguably appropriate for Posthumanism to remain “dynamic and shifting” (Ferrando, “Posthumanism, Transhumanism” 17) as it seeks to retain an openness and receptivity to many ways of becoming and many ways of “doing.”
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View more >In the Anthropocene, social identities have become globally technologized, mediatized, and medicalized more than ever before, so “ordinary” people become complicit in forms of becoming detrimental to their well-being, but profitable for a few. In this article, I argue that Posthumanist narratives use various discursive strategies to generate shifts in readers that form, or bring to consciousness, a sense of already being Posthuman. Part one locates the novel in relation to critical posthumanism, and part two explicates the narrative devices that facilitate critical posthuman consciousness. Part three offers brief thoughts about how to more fully explore critical posthumanist narrative because this article is but a step toward thinking about what may be relevant to Posthumanist narrative practices. Indeed, it is arguably appropriate for Posthumanism to remain “dynamic and shifting” (Ferrando, “Posthumanism, Transhumanism” 17) as it seeks to retain an openness and receptivity to many ways of becoming and many ways of “doing.”
View less >
Journal Title
Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction
Volume
59
Issue
1
Subject
Literary Theory
Literary Studies