Stages Of Transmutation: Science Fiction, Biology, And Environmental Posthumanism (perspectives On The Non-human In Literature And Culture)

__Stages of Transmutation: Science Fiction, Biology, and Environmental Posthumanism__ develops the theoretical perspective of environmental posthumanism through analyses of acclaimed science fiction novels by Greg Bear, Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Jeff VanderMeer, in which the human species suddenly transforms in response to new or changing environments. Narrating dramatic ecological events of human-to-nonhuman encounter, invasion, and transmutation, these novels allow the reader to understand the planet as an unstable stage for evolution and the human body as a home for bacteria and viruses. Idema argues that by drawing tension from biological theories of interaction and emergence (e.g. symbiogenesis, epigenetics), these works unsettle conventional relations among characters, technologies, story-worlds, and emplotment, refiguring the psychosocial work of the novel as always already biophysical. Problematizing a desire to compartmentalize and control life as the property of human subjects, these novels imagine life as an environmentally mediated, __staged__ event that enlists human and nonhuman actors. Idema demonstrates how literary narratives of transmutation render biological lessons of environmental instability and ecological interdependence both meaningful and urgent―a vital task in a time of mass extinction, hyperpollution, and climate change. This volume is an important intervention for scholars of the environmental humanities, posthumanism, literature and science, and science and technology studies. "Stages of Transmutation: Science Fiction, Biology, and Environmental Posthumanism develops the concept of environmental posthumanism through analyses of acclaimed science fiction novels by Greg Bear, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, and Kim Stanley Robinson, in which the human species suddenly transforms in response to new or changing environments. Narrating dramatic ecological events of human-to-nonhuman encounter, invasion, and transmutation, these novels allow the reader to understand the planet as an unstable stage for evolution and the human body as a home for bacteria and viruses. Idema argues that by drawing tension from biological theories of interaction and emergence (e.g. symbiogenesis, epigenetics), these works unsettle conventional relations among characters, technologies, story-worlds, and emplotment, refiguring the psycho-social work of the novel as always already biophysical. Problematizing a desire to compartmentalize and control life as the property of human subjects, these novels imagine life as an environmentally mediated, staged event that enlists human and nonhuman actors. Idema demonstrates how literary narratives of transmutation render biological lessons of environmental instability and ecological interdependence both meaningful and urgent -- a vital task in a time of mass extinction, hyperpollution, and climate change. This volume is an important intervention for scholars of the environmental humanities, posthumanism, literature and science, and science and technology studies"-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 6 Copyright Page 7 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 12 1 Introduction: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy 49 2 Infection: Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Radio 84 3 Disintegration: Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach 115 4 Amalgamation: Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood 148 Coda: Bringing Literature to Life 177 Index 184 This book develops the concept of environmental posthumanism through analyses of acclaimed science fiction novels by Greg Bear, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, and Kim Stanley Robinson, in which the human species suddenly transforms in response to new or changing environments.