Description
Book SynopsisLife Writing in the Posthuman Anthropocene is a timely collection of insightful contributions that negotiate how the genre of life writing, traditionally tied to the human perspective and thus anthropocentric qua definition, can provide adequate perspectives for an age of ecological disasters and global climate change. The volume’s eight chapters illustrate the aptness of life writing and life writing studies to critically reevaluate the role of “the human” vis-à-vis non-human others while remaining mindful of persisting inequalities between humans regarding who causes and who suffers damage in the Anthropocene age. The authors in this collection not only expand the toolbox of life writing studies by engaging with critical insights from the fields of posthumanism and ecocriticism, but, in turn, also enrich those fields by offering unique approaches to contemplate the responsibility of humans for as well as their relational existence in the posthuman Anthropocene.
Trade Review“Life Writing in the Posthuman Anthropocene is a down-to-earth (quite literally) posthumanist account that substitutes speculative futurism for a much-needed socioecological sensitivity. Students of the aging process would be inspired by the ways in which their object is put into perspective … . The book would also benefit anyone interested in the intersection between environmental and biographical studies … .” (João Pedro Martinez Pinheiro, Anthropology & Aging, Vol. 44 (1), 2023)
Table of Contents1. Introduction: Posthuman Life Writing and the Anthropocene – Ina Batzke, Linda M. Hess, and Lea Espinoza Garrido
Part I: Rethinking the (Post-)Human in Life Writing 2. Relationality, Voice, and Decentralization: Recalibrating Narrative Perspectives in AliceWalker’s, Leslie Marmon Silko’s, and Mary Oliver’s Self-life-Writing – Katja Sarkowsky3. Living the Anthropocene: Ecofeminist/Posthuman Episteme in Helen Macdonald`s H is for Hawk – Monir Gholamzadeh Bazarbash4. Humanity, Life Writing, and Deep Time: Postcolonial Contributions – Renata Lucena Dalmaso5. Edges and Extremes in Ecobiography: Amy Liptrot’s The Outrun – Jessica White
Part II: Rethinking Life Writing in a Post-Human Age6. The Big Picture: Sympoietic Becomings in Rachel Rosenthal’s Performance Art – Christina Caupert7. The Sentience of Sea Squirts: Underwater Lives and the Posthuman – Clare Brant8. Writing Life on Mars: Imaginaries of Extraterrestrial Colonization and Discourses of Planetarity and the NASA Mars Rover Missions – Jens Temmen
