Beyond Nature: Posthuman Ecologies and the Ethics of Environmental Narratives in Literature and Film
Beyond Nature: Posthuman Ecologies and the Ethics of Environmental Narratives in Literature and Film

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines how recent posthuman narratives articulate in literature and film a set of essential ethical and political dimensions through which to rethink human relationships with the environment. Drawing on the works of Timothy Morton and Greg Garrard, I examine how the narratives in J.M. Coetzee’s novels and Jia Zhangke’s films invite expanded affective engagement toward landscapes, animals, and objects. By contrast, I would argue that these narratives lure audiences into forging regenerative relationships with the nonhuman world through the erasure of rigid human-nature binary opposition and the subversion of traditional human-centred stories. Drawing on the theory of environmental imagination as expounded by Lawrence Buell, this essay examines how these stories function as ecocentric ecologies of cultural meaning. This approach, drawing on multiple disciplines, deepens our appreciation of the ethical underpinnings of these stories and the nuances involved in the nature-culture divide. Further, I utilize the empirical understanding gained from empirical ecocriticism. Therefore, this work examines how posthuman stories’ immersive settings and narrative techniques can influence ecological awareness and pro-environmental behaviour. The current research accentuates the stories’ ability to shift ecological consciousness, hence pressing readers and viewers toward developing a sense of kinship with non-human agents and engaging in ethics toward nature. In other words, this research posits that posthuman narratives represent a cultural methodology through which a sustainable, interconnected future may be shaped within an ecological paradigm, which is also constantly changing.

• Details
• Contents