Universes without us [electronic resource] : posthuman cosmologies in American literature / Matthew A. Taylor.
2013
PS217.P45 T39 2013eb
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Title
Universes without us [electronic resource] : posthuman cosmologies in American literature / Matthew A. Taylor.
ISBN
9780816680603 hardcover
9780816680610 paperback
9781452940519 electronic book
9780816680610 paperback
9781452940519 electronic book
Published
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2013]
Copyright
©2013
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (279 pages) : illustrations
Call Number
PS217.P45 T39 2013eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
810.9/384
Summary
" During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a wide variety of American writers proposed the existence of energies connecting human beings to cosmic processes. From varying points of view--scientific, philosophical, religious, and literary--they suggested that such energies would eventually result in the perfection of individual and collective bodies, assuming that assimilation into larger networks of being meant the expansion of humanity's powers and potentialities--a belief that continues to inform much posthumanist theory today. Universes without Us explores a lesser-known countertradition in American literature. As Matthew A. Taylor's incisive readings reveal, the heterodox cosmologies of Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Adams, Charles Chesnutt, and Zora Neale Hurston reject the anthropocentric fantasy that sees the universe as a kind of reservoir of self-realization. For these authors, the world can be made neither "other" nor "mirror." Instead, humans are enmeshed with "alien" processes that are both constitutive and destructive of "us." By envisioning universes no longer our own, these cosmologies picture a form of interconnectedness that denies any human ability to master it. Universes without Us demonstrates how the questions, possibilities, and dangers raised by the posthuman appeared nearly two centuries ago. Taylor finds in these works an untimely engagement with posthumanism, particularly in their imagining of universes in which humans are only one category of heterogeneous thing in a vast array of species, objects, and forces. He shows how posthumanist theory can illuminate American literary texts and how those texts might, in turn, prompt a reassessment of posthumanist theory. By understanding the posthuman as a materialist cosmology rather than a technological innovation, Taylor extends the range of thinkers who can be included in contemporary conversations about the posthuman. "-- Provided by publisher.
Note
Based on the author's thesis (Ph. D.) -- The Johns Hopkins University, 2009.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Access limited to authorized users.
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Description based on print version record.
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Universes without us : posthuman cosmologies in American literature.
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Table of Contents
Machine generated contents note:
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Immortal Post-Mortems
1. Edgar Allan Poe's Meta/Physics
2. Henry Adams's Half-Life: The Science of Autobiography
3. "By an Act of Self-Creation": On Becoming Human in America
4. Hoodoo You Think You Are?: Self-Conjuration in Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman
5. "It Might Be the Death of You": Hurston's Voodoo Ethnography
Coda: "The Cosmo-Political Party"
Notes
Index.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Immortal Post-Mortems
1. Edgar Allan Poe's Meta/Physics
2. Henry Adams's Half-Life: The Science of Autobiography
3. "By an Act of Self-Creation": On Becoming Human in America
4. Hoodoo You Think You Are?: Self-Conjuration in Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman
5. "It Might Be the Death of You": Hurston's Voodoo Ethnography
Coda: "The Cosmo-Political Party"
Notes
Index.