This volume presents the first collection of essays dedicated to the science fiction of microbiologist Joan Slonczewski. Posthuman Biopolitics consolidates the scholarly literature on Slonczewski’s fiction and demonstrates fruitful lines of engagement for the critical, cultural, and theoretical treatment of her characters, plots, and storyworlds. Her novels treat feminism in relation to scientific practice, resistance to domination, pacifism versus militarism, the extension of human rights to nonhuman and posthuman actors, biopolitics and posthuman ethics, and symbiosis and communication across planetary scales. Posthuman Biopolitics explores the breadth and depth of Joan Slonczewski’s vision, uncovering the reflective ethical practice that informs her science fiction.
Author(s): Bruce Clarke
Series: Palgrave Studies In Science And Popular Culture
Edition: 1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: XIII, 187
Tags: Contemporary Literature
Preface
Contents
Notes on Contributors
1 An Interview with Joan Slonczewski
Microbes
Humanity
Science Fiction
Religion
After the Elysium Cycle
References
2 Posthuman Narration in the Elysium Cycle
The Posthuman Comedy
The Posthuman Fabula
Power Over Life in A Door into Ocean
Posthuman Comedy in Daughter of Elysium
Narrating First Contacts
Doggie’s Odyssey
Intellectual Microbes
References
3 A Door into Ocean as a Model for Feminist Science
References
4 “Then Came Pantropy”: Grotesque Bodies, Multispecies Flourishing, and Human–Animal Relationships in A Door into Ocean
Multispecies Flourishing
Clickflies: Companion Species and the Carnivalesque Uncrowning
The Purple Plague: Symbiogenesis and the Grotesque Interval
Humans and the Anthropological Machine
Seaswallowers and the Grotesque Body of the World
References
5 Bodies That Remember: History and Age in The Children Star and Brain Plague
SF and History
Destroying Place-History
Children Who Remember
A Plague on Both Your Houses
References
6 Microbial Life and Posthuman Ethics from The Children Star to The Highest Frontier
Microbial Political Life
The Children Star
Microbiopolitics
Brain Plague
The Highest Frontier and the Latent Commons
References
7 The Future at Stake: Modes of Speculation in The Highest Frontier and Microbiology: An Evolving Science
To Space—And Beyond
In Science—and Out
Responsible Speculation
To Practice—Speculation
References
8 Wisdom Is an Odd Number: Community and the Anthropocene in The Highest Frontier
The Anthropocene
Community
Wisdom and Humility
Mary the Ultraphyte
Gaia and Human Responsibility
The “Highest Frontier”
Works Cited
Index
