HYPEROBJECTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL TEMPORALITY IN ANIMAL’S PEOPLE (2007): NARRATING SLOW VIOLENCE IN THE AFTERMATH OF INDUSTRIAL DISASTER
HYPEROBJECTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL TEMPORALITY IN ANIMAL’S PEOPLE (2007): NARRATING SLOW VIOLENCE IN THE AFTERMATH OF INDUSTRIAL DISASTER

Summary/Abstract: This paper develops a theoretical engagement with the concept of hyperobjects by examining how cultural texts render such phenomena perceptible. This article aims to establish hyperobject theory as a methodological lens for examining environmental temporality, clarifying how sudden explosive disasters coexist with and are compounded by slow disasters like toxic contamination and the climate emergency. Hyperobjects, defined by qualities such as nonlocality, viscosity, and temporal undulation, pose challenges to human perception and representation. The methodology combines theoretical analysis from the environmental humanities with a case study of Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People (2007). The novel provides a narrative space in which the abstractions of hyperobject theory can be explored in embodied, temporal, and ecological terms. The analysis focuses on how the Khaufpur gas disaster dramatizes the immediacy of a sudden disaster alongside the endurance of a slow disaster that persists across generations. Through the figure of Animal and the narrative’s attention to contaminated environments, the text demonstrates how lived experience intersects with planetary-scale ecological forces. By linking local industrial catastrophe to the global horizon of the climate crisis, the paper argues that literature not only reflects but also expands theoretical vocabularies for apprehending the material and ethical dimensions of environmental harm.

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