Speculative realism and science fiction
By: Brian Willems
Series: Speculative realism; Speculative realism
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press Ltd
Published: 2017
Place of publication: Edinburgh
Language: eng
Number of pages: 223
ISBN-13: 9781474422697; 9781474422703; 9781474422710; 9781474422727
Copyright date: 2017
Subjects: Science fiction; History and criticism; Anthropomorphism; Theory
Description: "One of the reasons that speculative materialism challenges anthropomorphism is that a human-centred approach to the environment is leading to ecological collapse. Therefore, when non-human things are taken to be as equally valid objects of investigation as humans, a more responsible and truthful view of the world takes place. Brian Willems draws on the science fiction of Cormac McCarthy, Paolo Bacigalupi, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Doris Lessing and Kim Stanley Robinson alongside speculative materialists including Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux and Jane Bennett. By questioning it, these writers and philosophers both develop and challenge anthropomorphism. Willems looks at how nonsense and sense exist together in science fiction, the way that language is not a guarantee of personhood, the role of vision in relation to identity formation, the difference between metamorphosis and modulation, representations of non-human deaths and the function of plasticity within the Anthropocene."--Provided by publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-219) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: The Zug effect; title: Divine paraphrase : Cormac McCarthy; title: Double-vision : Neil Gaiman; title: Subtraction and contradiction : China Miéville; title: Tension and phase : Doris Lessing; title: Animal death : Paolo Bacigalupi; title: Transcription : Kim Stanley Robinson; title: Conclusion.