Life Writing in the Posthuman Anthropocene

Life 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. InaBatzke is researcher and lecturer in American Studies at the University of Augsburg, Germany. Lea Espinoza Garrido is a researcher and lecturer in American Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Wuppertal, Germany. Linda M. Hess is a senior lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of American Studies at the University of Augsburg, Germany.

Auteur

Ina Batzke is a researcher and lecturer in American Studies at the University of Augsburg, Germany. She has published a monograph on life narratives of undocumented migrants and co-edited a special issue on Storied Citizenship. Her current research project concerns the productivity of nature writing as a genre for the Anthropocene.

Lea Espinoza Garrido is a researcher and lecturer in American Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Wuppertal, Germany. She has published on racialized and gendered representations in contemporary American and European popular culture and has co-edited a special issue on Migrant States of Exception.

Linda M. Hess is a senior lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of American Studies at the University of Augsburg, Germany. She is the author of Queer Aging in North American Fiction (2019). Her current research focuses on ideas of grievability, preservation, and loss in ecocriticism.

Contenu

1. 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