Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media

Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media: From Annihilation to High Life and Beyond places posthumanism and feminist theory into dialogue with contemporary science fiction film and media. This essay collection is intimately invested in the debates around the posthuman and the critical posthumanities within a feminist critical-theoretical framework.In this posthumanist light, science fiction as a genre allows for new imaginings of human-technological relations, while it can also be the site of a critique of human exceptionalism and essentialism. In this way, science fiction affords unique opportunities for the scholarly investigation of the relevance and relative applicability of specific posthumanist themes and questions in a particularly rich and wide-ranging popular cultural field of production. One of the reasons for this suitability is the genre''s historically longstanding relationship with the critical investigation of gender, specifically the position and relative empowerment of women. The original analyses presented here pay close attention to audiovisual style (including game mechanics), facilitating the critical interrogation of the issues and questions around posthumanism. Where typically the mention of SF in the posthumanist context calls to mind a whole set of (often cliched) tropes-the cyborg, technologically augmented bodies, AI subjectivities, etc.-this volume''s thirteen chapters analyze specific examples of contemporary SF cinema that engage in meaningful ways with the burgeoning field of critical posthumanism, and that utilize such films to interrogate posthumanist and feminist as well as humanistic ideas.>

Préface

Places posthumanism and feminist theory into direct conversation with contemporary science fiction film and media from the 1980s to present.

Auteur

Julia A. Empey is a Postdoctoral Researcher and University College Cork, Ireland, and currently the book reviews editor at Interconnections: The Journal of Posthumanism. Her research and publication interests focus on contemporary literature and film, feminist and posthumanist theory, and science fiction literature, film, and media. Her other interests include eco-criticism, cosmopolitan studies, and political theory.

Russell J. A. Kilbourn is Professor and Chair of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. He publishes on memory, film, comparative studies, critical posthumanism, and postsecular cinema. His books include The Cinema of Paolo Sorrentino: Commitment to Style (2020), W.G. Sebald's Postsecular Redemption: Catastrophe with Spectator (2018), The Memory Effect: The Remediation of Memory in Literature and Film (co-edited with Eleanor Ty; 2013), and Cinema, Memory, Modernity: The Representation of Memory from the Art Film to Transnational Cinema (2010). Dr. Kilbourn is one of the founders of the Posthumanism Research Network (based at Brock University and Wilfrid Laurier), an associate editor at Interconnections: The Journal of Posthumanism, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies. His current project is on posthuman memory.

Contenu

List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Preface

IntroductionFeminist Refractions of the Posthuman
Julia A. Empey(University of Cambridge, UK) and Russell J. A. Kilbourn (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada)

PART ONE: Posthuman Bodies and Identities

1. Indigenous Futurist and Women-Centred Dystopian Film
   Missy Molloy (Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand)
2. Gender, Sex, and Feminist AI: 13 Theses on Her
   Sarah Stulz (Independent Scholar, Switzerland)
3. Her: A Posthuman Love Story
   Zorianna Zurba (Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada)
4. Posthuman Mothers and Reproductive Biovalue in Blade Runner: 2049 and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
   Jerika Sanderson (University of Waterloo, Canada)
5. Desirable and Undesirable Cyborg Bodies in the Mass Effect Video Game Series
   Sarah Stang (Brock University, Canada)

PART TWO: Posthuman Environments and Entanglements

6. Material Entanglements and Posthuman Female Subjectivity in Annihilation
   Evdokia Stefanopoulou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)
7. Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin: Female Embodiment and Ecology
   Meraj Dhir (Harvard University, USA)
8. Living in Colour: Feminist and Posthumanist Ontology in Upstream Color
   Emily Sanders(Queen's University, Canada)
9. Ascendance to Trans-Corporeality or Assimilation to Whiteness: The Posthuman Imaginaries of Annihilation and Midsommar
   Olivia Stowell (University of Michigan, USA)

PART THREE: Posthumanist Endings and Futures

10. Digital Ecologies: Posthuman Convergences in Abzû and Horizon: Zero Dawn
    Sarah Best (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada)
11. From Rogue Planets to Black Holes: Revaluing Death in Melancholia and High Life
    Julia A. Empey(University of Cambridge, UK)
12. 'Originary Twoness': Flashbacks and the Materiality of Memory in Annihilation, High Life, and Arrival
    Russell J. A. Kilbourn (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada)
13. Coming to Terms with Our Own Ends: Failed Reproduction and the End of the Hu/man in Claire Denis' High Life and Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lija's Aniara
    Elif Sendur (Rutgers University, USA) and Allison Mackey (Universidad de la República, Uruguay)

References
Index