New Ecological Realisms: Post-Apocalyptic Fiction and Contemporary Theory

Monika Kaup

Published by Edinburgh University Press 2021

New Ecological Realisms

Post-Apocalyptic Fiction and Contemporary Theory

Monika Kaup

In the series Speculative Realism

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474483117

Overview
Contents

About this book

Presents post-apocalyptic fiction as a unique source of new realist ontologies

Shows how new realism reshapes humanistic inquiry in the age of climate change
Contributes to the rehabilitation and reframing of realism after postmodernism
Introduces a new contextual and ecological realism that reconnects the human cultural world with non-humans and the environment

What is the singular reality of humanistic objects of study? By pairing post-apocalyptic novels by Margaret Atwood, José Saramago, Octavia Butler and Cormac McCarthy with new realist theories, Monika Kaup shows that, just as new realist theory can illuminate post-apocalyptic literature, post-apocalyptic literature also embeds new theories of the real.

Kaup showcases a context-based concept of the real, arguing that new realisms of complex and embedded wholes, actor-networks and ecologies, rather than old realisms of isolated parts and things, represent the most promising escape from the impasses of constructivism and positivism.

To achieve this, Kaup brings together contemporary theories that formulate context-based realisms:

Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory
Chilean neurophenomenologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s theories of autopoiesis and enactivism
German philosopher Markus Gabriel’s new ontology of fields of sense
French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness
American philosopher Alphonso Lingis’s phenomenology of passionate identification

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Series Editor’s Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	xii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 New Ecological Realisms and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
2 The New Realism of the Factish and the Political Ecology of Humans and Non-Humans: Bruno Latour and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
3 The Ontology of Knowledge as the Enaction of Mind and World: Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela’s Autopoietic Theory and José Saramago’s Blindness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
4 Apocalypse as Field of Sense: Markus Gabriel’s Ontology of Fields of Sense and Octavia Butler’s Parable Series Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	196
5 New Phenomenologies after Poststructuralism (Jean-Luc Marion and Alphonso Lingis) and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	307
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	323

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Audience: College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 352
Illustrations
- Other: 2 B/W illustrations
Keywords: Philosophy

eBook

Published: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 9781474483117