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.

Reconfiguring Human, Nonhuman, and Posthuman: Striving for More Ethical CohabitationSanna Karkulehto, Aino-Kaisi Koistinen, Karoliina Lummaa, and Essi VarisPart 1. Towards Posthumanist Literature and Posthumanist Reading1 On the Possibility of a Posthuman/ist Literature(s)Carole Guesse2 Posthumanist Reading: Witnessing Ghosts, Summoning Nonhuman PowersKaroliina Lummaa3 Becoming-instrument: Thinking with Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation and Timothy Morton's HyperobjectsKaisa KortekallioPart 2. Imagining Aliens and Monsters4 Alien Overtures: Speculating about Nonhuman Experiences with Comic Book CharactersEssi Varis5 Playing the Nonhuman: Alien Experiences in Aliens vs. PredatorJonne Arjoranta6 Wild Things Squeezed in the Closet: Monsters of Children’s Literature as Nonhuman OthersMarleena Mustola and Sanna KarkulehtoPart 3. Becoming with Animals7 Dead Dog Talking: Posthumous, Preposthumous, and Preposterous Canine Narration in Charles Siebert’s AngusMikko Keskinen8 Carnivorous Anatomies: Art and Being BeastsBrad Bolman9 Reconfiguring Human and Nonhuman Animals in a Guiding Assemblage: Towards Posthumanist Conception of DisabilityHana PorkertováPart 4. Technological (Co-)Agencies10 Meeting the Machine Halfway: Towards Non-Anthropocentric SemioticsCléo Collomb and Samuel Goyet 11 Journeys in Intensity: Human and Nonhuman Co-Agency, Neuropower, and Counterplay in MinecraftMarleena Huuhka12 Cyborganic Wearables: Sociotechnical Misbehavior and the Evolution of Nonhuman AgencyPatricia Flanagan and Raune Frankjær Part 5. Afterword: Unnarratable Matter?13 Unnarratable Matter: Emergence, Narrative, and Material EcocriticismJuha Raipola

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.