Life, re-scaled : the biological imagination in twenty-first-century literature and performance

This edited volume explores new engagements with the life sciences in contemporary fiction, poetry, comics and performance. The gathered case studies investigate how recent creative work reframes the human within microscopic or macroscopic scales, from cellular biology to systems ecology, and engages with the ethical, philosophical, and political issues raised by the twenty-first century's shifting views of life. The collection thus examines literature and performance as spaces that shape our contemporary biological imagination. Comprised of thirteen chapters by an international group of academics, Life, Re-Scaled: The Biological Imagination in Twenty-First-Century Literature and Performance engages with four main areas of biological study: 'Invisible scales: cells, microbes and mycelium', 'Neuro-medical imaging and diagnosis', 'Pandemic imaginaries', and 'Ecological scales'. The authors examine these concepts in emerging forms such as plant theatre, climate change art, ecofiction and pandemic fiction, including the work of Jeff Vandermeer, Jon McGregor, Jeff Lemire, and Extinction Rebellion's Red Rebel Brigade performances. This valuable resource moves beyond the biological paradigms that were central to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to outline the specificity of a contemporary imagination. Life, Re-Scaled is crucial reading for academics, scholars, and authors alike, as it proposes an unprecedented overview of the relationship between literature, performance and the life sciences in the twenty-first century. Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors 1. Introduction Imagination, Science and Power Questions of Scale Aesthetic Trends Chapter Presentation Works Cited I. Invisible Scales: Cells, Microbes and Mycelium 2. Human Environmental Aesthetics: The Molecular Sublime and the Molecular Grotesque The Molecular Sublime Imagining Microbes: From the Molecular Sublime to the Molecular Grotesque Molecular Landscapes: New Ways of Reading the Anthropocene Conclusion: The Big Moment of the Very Small Works Cited 3. Still Life and Vital Matter in Gillian Clarke’s Poetry The Poetry of Stone Playing with Scale Images of Metamorphosis and Development Sounding the Flesh Science in the Landscape Works Cited 4. Mycoaesthetics: Weird Fungi and Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation Weird Ecology, Weird Fiction Wood Wide Web as Ecological Genome The Fungal Kingdom Works Cited II. Neuro-Medical Imaging and Diagnosis 5. To Be or Not to Be a Patient: Challenging Biomedical Categories in Joshua Ferris’s The Unnamed Challenging Medical Knowledge and Classifications Challenging Neurological Reduction Challenging Social and Literary Categories Works Cited 6. Neurocomics and Neuroimaging: David B.’s Epileptic and Matteo Farinella and Hana Roš’s Neurocomic The Tools of Comics The Tools of Neuroimaging A Person Surrounds This Brain Works Cited III. Pandemic Imaginaries 7. The Fiction of the Empty Pandemic City: Race and Diaspora in Ling Ma’s Severance Works Cited 8. Dead Gods and Geontopower: An Ecocritical Reading of Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth Works Cited 9. Depopulating the Novel: Post-Catastrophe Fiction, Scale, and the Population Unconscious The Population Unconscious Cosy Catastrophe Population between Science and Speculation in Science Fiction Survival at Scale in Post-Catastrophe Science Fiction Utopian and Realist Fictions Conclusion: Downscaling Survival Works Cited IV. Ecological Scales 10. The Everyday Pluriverse: Ecosystem Modelling in Reservoir 13 Introduction: The Rural Mesocosm Noticing Nonhuman Narratives Visualising Coexistence, Part I Modelling Interspecies Assemblages Visualising Coexistence, Part II Conclusion: Scale and Stoicism in the Everyday Anthropocene Works Cited 11. The Narrative and Aesthetic Strategies of Climate Change Comics Making the Global Threat Personal Anthropomorphic Figures Biography and Autobiography Scientific Distance Versus Intimate Experience Works Cited 12. Displacing the Human: Representing Ecological Crisis on Stage ‘It’s Actually Not About Us’: The Paradox of Human-Centric Ecological Drama Shifting the Boundaries: The Spatial, the Temporal, and the Sensory ‘Fragments, Shards, Whispers’: Imagining the Impossible Other Conclusion Works Cited 13. Staging Larger Scales and Deep Entanglements: The Choice of Immersion in Four Ecological Performances Intermingling Life Forms and Scales Forms of Displacement by Immersion Reading Signs The Place of the Spectator A Diplomatic Theatre Works Cited List of Illustrations Index