Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture

The time has come for human cultures to seriously think, to severely conceptualize, and to earnestly fabulate about all the nonhuman critters we share our world with, and to consider how to strive for more ethical cohabitation. Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman in Literature and Culture tackles this severe matter within the framework of literary and cultural studies. The emphasis of the inquiry is on the various ways actual and fictional nonhumans are reconfigured in contemporary culture - although, as long as the domain of nonhumanity is carved in the negative space of humanity, addressing these issues will inevitably clamor for the reconfiguration of the human as well.
The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/reconfiguring-human-nonhuman-posthuman-literature-culture-sanna-karkulehto-aino-kaisa-koistinen-essi-varis/e/10.4324/9780429243042, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Sanna Karkulehto is Professor of Literature at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She has published books, articles and book chapters on the critical study of representation, the politics of discourse, and the politics of difference. Her latest co-edited anthology offers theorization on the ethics and politics of reading when studying representations of gender and violence. Aino-Kaisa Koistinen (PhD, contemporary culture studies) currently works as postdoctoral researcher in contemporary culture studies at the University of Jyväskylä. Her research interests include feminist theory, posthumanism, crime fiction and speculative fiction, transmediality, and monster studies. Essi Varis is a graduate student in Comparative Literature and Comics at the University of Jyväskylä. She defended her doctoral compilation dissertation Graphic Human Experiments: Frankensteinian Cognitive Logics of Characters in Vertigo Comics and Beyond in April of 2019.

INTRODUCTION Chapter 1: Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman and Posthuman: Striving for More Ethical Cohabitation Section 1: Towards Posthumanist Literature and Posthumanist Reading Chapter 2: On the Possibility of Posthuman-ist Literature Chapter 3: Posthumanist Reading: Witnessing Ghosts, Summoning Powers Chapter 4: Becoming-instrument: Thinking with Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation and Timothy Morton's Hyperobjects Section 2: Imagining Alien Experiences Chapter 5: Alien Overtures: Speculating about Nonhuman Experiences with Comic Book Characters Chapter 6: Playing the Nonhuman: Alien Experiences in Aliens vs. Predator Section 3: Becoming with Animals Chapter 7: Dead Dog Talking: Posthumous, Preposthumous, and Preposterous Canine Narration in Charles Sierbert's Angus Chapter 8: Carnivorous Anatomies: Art and Being Beasts Chapter 9: Connecting Difference: A Human/Guide Dog Assemblage Section 4: Technological (Co-)Agencies Chapter 10: Meeting the Machine Halfway: Towards Non-anthropocentric Semiotics Chapter 11: Human and Nonhuman Co-Agency, Neuropower and Counterplay in Minecraft Chapter 12: Cyborganic Wearables: Sociotechnical Misbehavior and the Evolution of Nonhuman Agency Section 5: Afterword: Unnarratable Matter? Chapter 13: Unnarratable Matter: Emergence, Narrative, and Material Ecocriticism