Abstract
Erin James and Birgit Spengler discuss the role of (life) narratives in the posthuman Anthropocene from a narratological perspective. Building on postcolonial scholarship and her own work in the field of econarratology, James calls on scholars in the environmental humanities to develop a more precise definition of “narrative” as well as to distinguish more carefully between agency and narrative agency, which she defines as a cognitive affordance unique to humans. Additionally, she encourages these scholars not only to continue to study the human but also to examine the gaps and silences in (life) narratives written by and for humans to understand how these texts have reproduced anthropocentric world views and, ultimately, to find ways to overcome these views.
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Notes
- 1.
Pratt, “Coda: Concept and Chronotope,” 170.
- 2.
See Tsing, Bubandt, Gan, and Swanson, eds., The Arts of Living.
- 3.
Phelan, Narrative as Rhetoric, 218.
- 4.
Herman, Basic Elements of Narrative, 9.
- 5.
- 6.
Kalmus, “To My Fellow.”
- 7.
Weik von Mossner, Affective Ecologies, Chap. 4.
- 8.
Prince, “The Disnarrated,” 2.
- 9.
Casper, “What Is It Not.”
- 10.
Iser, Der Akt des Lesens.
- 11.
Leopold, A Sand County Almanac.
- 12.
Christie, Greenwood.
- 13.
Powers, The Overstory.
- 14.
Proulx, Barkskins.
- 15.
Genette, “Boundaries of Narrative,” 1.
- 16.
Said, Culture and Imperialism.
- 17.
James, “The Value of Old Stories.”
- 18.
Keen, “Narrative Empathy.”
- 19.
Watt, Rise of the Novel.
- 20.
McEwan, Solar.
- 21.
Ghosh, The Great Derangement.
- 22.
Ryan, “Possible Worlds.”
- 23.
Trexler, Anthropocene Fictions.
- 24.
LeMenager, “Climate Change.”
- 25.
Robinson, “Forward.”
- 26.
Hegglund, “Unnatural Narratology.”
- 27.
Nixon, “Great Acceleration.”
- 28.
Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History.”
- 29.
Caracciolo, “Notes,” 172.
- 30.
James and Morel, “Introduction,” 2.
- 31.
Haraway, Staying with the Trouble, 13.
- 32.
Ibid., 34.
- 33.
White and Whitlock, “Life: Writing and Rights,” 2.
- 34.
Alaimo, Bodily Natures, 2.
- 35.
Iovino, “Stories,” 451.
- 36.
See Nixon, Slow Violence.
- 37.
James, The Storyworld Accord.
- 38.
James and Morel, Environment and Narrative.
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James, E., Spengler, B. (2021). (Life) Narrative in the Posthuman Anthropocene: Erin James in Conversation with Birgit Spengler. In: Batzke, I., Espinoza Garrido, L., Hess, L.M. (eds) Life Writing in the Posthuman Anthropocene. Palgrave Studies in Life Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77973-3_9
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