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Reading Mutant Narratives : The Bodily Experientiality of Contemporary Ecological Science Fiction

21 Feb 2020-
TL;DR: The work in this paper explores how narratives of environmental and personal transformation in contemporary ecological science fiction can develop more-than-human modes of embodied experience, and traces and describes experiential changes that take place while reading works of science fiction, and synthesizes these approaches into a method of close reading, performative enactivism, that helps to articulate bodily, environmental, and morethanhuman aspects of readerly engagement.
Abstract: Reading Mutant Narratives explores how narratives of environmental and personal transformation in contemporary ecological science fiction can develop more-thanhuman modes of embodied experience. More specifically, it attends to the conflicted yet potentially transformative experientiality of mutant narratives. Mutant narratives are viewed as uneasy hybrids of human-centered and posthumanist science fiction that contain potential for ecological understanding. Drawing on narrative studies and empirical reading studies, the dissertation begins from the premise that in suitable conditions, reading fiction may give rise to experiential change. The study traces and describes experiential changes that take place while reading works of science fiction. The bodily, subjective and historical conditions of reading are considered alongside the generic contexts and narrative features of the fictional works studied. As exemplary cases of mutant narratives, the study foregrounds the work of three American science fiction authors known for their critiques of anthropocentrism and for their articulations of more-than-human ecologies: Greg Bear, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Jeff VanderMeer. While much of contemporary fiction naturalizes embodied experience and hides their own narrative strategies, mutant narratives have the potential to defamiliarize readers’ notions of bodies and environments while also estranging their embodied experience of reading fiction. As a theoretical contribution to science fiction studies, the study considers such a readerly dynamic in terms of embodied estrangement. Building on theoretical and practical work done in both embodied cognitive and posthumanist approaches to literature, the study shows how engagements with fictional narratives can, for their part, shape readers’ habitual patterns of feeling and perception. These approaches are synthesized into a method of close reading, performative enactivism, that helps to articulate bodily, environmental, and more-thanhuman aspects of readerly engagement. Attending to such experiential aspects integrates ecological science fiction more deeply into the contemporary experiential situation of living with radical environmental transformation.
Citations
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Proceedings ArticleDOI
25 Oct 2020
TL;DR: This research on DIY tools and methodologies for urban civic interventions examines how applying a speculative fabulation method facilitates probing, informing and engaging citizens on a variety of human and more-than-human urban issues.
Abstract: Amidst the epistemological turbulence of the Anthropocene, forging new narratives has considerable importance. Departing from human-centred thinking and world-building, a shift in perspective towards a more-than-human worldview requires a continuous process of increasing awareness through various media and education. In our research on DIY tools and methodologies for urban civic interventions, we examine how applying a speculative fabulation method facilitates probing, informing and engaging citizens on a variety of human and more-than-human urban issues. Drawing on the theoretical backdrop from the environmental humanities, through an ethnographic account of two preliminary participatory design tracks, we describe how we infused our workshop interventions and participatory protocols with embodied and material storytelling that probes towards fostering more-than-human imaginaries. We discuss the potentials and pitfalls of using such an approach for tackling urban issues, and end the paper with a propositional outline for integrating the speculative fabulation method in civic HCI.

11 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
13 Jan 2021
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the Anthropocene cannot provide sufficient societal alternatives for the current ecological predicament, due to the fact that the concept of abstract humanity to be able to offer real societal alternatives.
Abstract: This article explores the social and political imagination of ‘the Anthropocene’ and the utopian counter images that can be derived from it. From the utopian studies perspective, I argue that the Anthropocene cannot provide sufficient societal alternatives for the current ecological predicament. This is due to the fact that the concept of Anthropocene relies too heavily on the image of abstract humanity to be able to offer real societal alternatives. It cannot name the social system we live in and, therefore, it cannot fundamentally challenge existing social arrangements. Based on utopian social theory, I conceptualize utopia as a counter image of the present motivated by a desire for better being. The contents and the politically transformative potentials of utopian counter-images depend on the conceptualization of the present itself. I contrast the utopian potentials of ‘the Anthropocene’ with that of ‘the Capitalocene’ which is more apt in outlining the social conditions of the present. Thus, the Capitalocene as a concept opens up more radical possibilities for imagining societal alternatives by conceptualizing the present socially.

6 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2020
TL;DR: Koistinen and Mantymaki as mentioned in this paper examined how graphic violence evokes affect in the context of ecological destruction in the UK-produced TV crime fiction series Fortitude (2015-17).
Abstract: Koistinen and Mantymaki examine how graphic violence evokes affect in the context of ecological destruction in the UK-produced TV crime fiction series Fortitude (2015–17). They argue that the series mobilises generic exchange by incorporating speculative elements into a traditional crime narrative structure, thereby creating space for affective estrangement. They show how the amalgamation of violence, ecological destruction and affect serves as an entrance into socioecological critique with a strong cautionary element through the negotiation between the human and nonhuman and the ethics of violence. Theoretically, the chapter relies on Sara Ahmed’s view of affect as social processes produced through circulation.

3 citations

Book ChapterDOI
Gry Ulstein1
01 Jan 2021
TL;DR: VanderMeer as discussed by the authors argues that the novella takes the point of view of the nonhuman without rendering the plot genre-formulaic and depoliticised on the one hand, and without succumbing to pure allegory on the other.
Abstract: This chapter close-reads The Strange Bird by Jeff VanderMeer (The Strange Bird: A Borne Story. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017) in light of ongoing discussions in ecocriticism, posthumanism, and narrative theory. I argue that the novella takes the point of view of the nonhuman without rendering the plot genre-formulaic and depoliticised on the one hand, and without succumbing to pure allegory on the other. Based on the assumption that weird narratives demonstrate an affinity for expressing ecological anxieties via nonhuman characters by challenging tensions between hierarchical binaries such as subject and object, self and other, I argue that The Strange Bird uses affordances of the weird mode to trouble (under)current notions of subjectivity and agency, specifically by experimenting with nonhuman narration, affect, and a form of narrativised anamorphic projection.

1 citations

References
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Book
01 Jan 1979
TL;DR: The relationship between Stimulation and Stimulus Information for visual perception is discussed in detail in this article, where the authors also present experimental evidence for direct perception of motion in the world and movement of the self.
Abstract: Contents: Preface. Introduction. Part I: The Environment To Be Perceived.The Animal And The Environment. Medium, Substances, Surfaces. The Meaningful Environment. Part II: The Information For Visual Perception.The Relationship Between Stimulation And Stimulus Information. The Ambient Optic Array. Events And The Information For Perceiving Events. The Optical Information For Self-Perception. The Theory Of Affordances. Part III: Visual Perception.Experimental Evidence For Direct Perception: Persisting Layout. Experiments On The Perception Of Motion In The World And Movement Of The Self. The Discovery Of The Occluding Edge And Its Implications For Perception. Looking With The Head And Eyes. Locomotion And Manipulation. The Theory Of Information Pickup And Its Consequences. Part IV: Depiction.Pictures And Visual Awareness. Motion Pictures And Visual Awareness. Conclusion. Appendixes: The Principal Terms Used in Ecological Optics. The Concept of Invariants in Ecological Optics.

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TL;DR: The body politics of Julia Kristeva and the Body Politics of JuliaKristeva as mentioned in this paper are discussed in detail in Section 5.1.1 and Section 6.2.1.
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21,123 citations


"Reading Mutant Narratives : The Bod..." refers background in this paper

  • ...This enactive performativity plays a part in the constitution of embodied subjectivities, as theorized by feminist critics (Butler 1990, Warhol 2003)....

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  • ...Through repeated engagements, readerly choreographies can be naturalized and habituated, which can contribute to the lived experience and bodily actions of readers (Butler 1990, Warhol 2003)....

    [...]

Book
01 Jan 1980
TL;DR: Lakoff and Johnson as mentioned in this paper suggest that these basic metaphors not only affect the way we communicate ideas, but actually structure our perceptions and understandings from the beginning, and they offer an intriguing and surprising guide to some of the most common metaphors and what they can tell us about the human mind.
Abstract: People use metaphors every time they speak. Some of those metaphors are literary - devices for making thoughts more vivid or entertaining. But most are much more basic than that - they're "metaphors we live by", metaphors we use without even realizing we're using them. In this book, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson suggest that these basic metaphors not only affect the way we communicate ideas, but actually structure our perceptions and understandings from the beginning. Bringing together the perspectives of linguistics and philosophy, Lakoff and Johnson offer an intriguing and surprising guide to some of the most common metaphors and what they can tell us about the human mind. And for this new edition, they supply an afterword both extending their arguments and offering a fascinating overview of the current state of thinking on the subject of the metaphor.

17,091 citations

Book
01 Jan 1990
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a Phenomonology of modernity and post-modernity in the context of trust in abstract systems and the transformation of intimacy in the modern world.
Abstract: Part I:. Introduction. The Discontinuities of Modernity. Security and Danger, Trust and Risk. Sociology and Modernity. Modernity, Time and Space. Disembedding. Trust. The Reflexivity of Modernity. Modernity and Post-- Modernity?. Summary. Part II:. The Institutional Dimensions of Modernity. The Globalizing of Modernity. Two Theoretical Perspectives. Dimensions of Globalization. Part III:. Trust and Modernity. Trust in Abstract Systems. Trust and Expertise. Trust and Ontological Security. The Pre--Modern and Modern. Part IV:. Abstract Systems and the Transformation of Intimacy. Trust and Personal Relations. Trust and Personal Identity. Risk and Danger in the Modern World. Risk and Ontological Security. Adaptive Reactions. A Phenomonology of Modernity. Deskilling and Reskilling in Everyday Life. Objections to Post--Modernity. Part V:. Riding the Juggernaut. Utopian Realism. Future Orientations. The Role of Social Movements. Post--Modernity. Part VI: . Is Modernity and Western Project?. Concluding Observations. Notes.

14,544 citations

Book
01 Jan 1945
TL;DR: Carman as discussed by the authors described the body as an object and Mechanistic Physiology, and the experience of the body and classical psychology as a Sexed being, as well as the Synthesis of One's Own Body and Motility.
Abstract: Foreword, Taylor Carman Introduction, Claude Lefort Preface Introduction: Classical Prejudices and the Return to Phenomena I. Sensation II. Association and the Projection of Memories III. Attention and Judgment IV. The Phenomenal Field Part 1: The Body 1. The Body as an Object and Mechanistic Physiology 2. The Experience of the Body and Classical Psychology 3. The Spatiality of the One's Own Body and Motility 4. The Synthesis of One's Own Body 5. The Body as a Sexed Being 6. Speech and the Body as Expression Part 2: The Perceived World 7. Sensing 8. Space 9. The Thing and the Natural World 10. Others and the Human World Part 3: Being-For-Itself and Being-In-The-World 11. The Cogito 12. Temporality 13. Freedom Original Bibliography Bibliography of English Translations cited Additional Work Cited Index

9,938 citations