Stages of Transmutation Science Fiction, Biology, and Environmental Posthumanism Tom Idema

Stages of Transmutation Stages of Transmutation: Science Fiction, Biology, and Environmen- tal Posthumanism develops the theoretical perspective of environmental posthumanism through analyses of acclaimed science fiction novels by Greg Bear, Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Jeff Vander- Meer, in which the human species suddenly transforms in response to new or changing environments. Narrating dramatic ecological events of human-to-nonhuman encounter, invasion, and transmutation, these novels allow the reader to understand the planet as an unstable stage for evolution and the human body as a home for bacteria and viruses. Idema argues that by drawing tension from biological theories of interaction and emergence (e.g. symbiogenesis, epigenetics), these works unsettle conventional relations among characters, technologies, story-worlds, and emplotment, refiguring the psychosocial work of the novel as always already biophysical. Problematizing a desire to compartmentalize and control life as the property of human subjects, these novels imagine life as an environmentally mediated, staged event that enlists human and nonhuman actors. Idema demonstrates how literary narratives of transmutation render biological lessons of environmental instability and ecological interdependence both meaningful and urgent—a vital task in a time of mass extinction, hyperpollution, and climate change. This volume is an important intervention for scholars of the environmental humanities, posthumanism, literature and science, and science and technology studies. Tom Idema is a lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature at Utrecht University, working at the intersections of literary studies, environmental humanities, and science and technology studies. His work has appeared in edited volumes and journals including Frame, Configu- rations, Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, Biosocieties, and Ecozon@. Perspectives on the Non-Human in Literature and Culture Series Editor: Karen Raber, University of Mississippi, USA Literary and cultural criticism has ventured into a brave new world in recent decades: posthumanism, ecocriticism, critical animal studies, Object- Oriented Ontology, the new vitalism, Actor-Network Theory, and other re- lated approaches have transformed the critical environment, reinvigorating our encounters with familiar texts, and inviting us to take note of new or neglected ones. A vast array of non-human creatures, things, and forces are now emerging as important agents in their own right. Inspired by human concern for an ailing planet, ecocriticism has grappled with the question of how important works of art can be to the preservation of something we have traditionally called “nature.” Yet literature’s capacity to take us on un- expected journeys through the networks of affiliation and affinity we share with the earth on which we dwell—and without which we die—and to confront us with the drama of our common struggle to survive and thrive has not diminished in the face of what Lyn White Jr. called “our ecological crisis.” Animals have crept, slithered, trotted, swum and flown away from their customary function as metaphors, emblems or analogies; now they populate critical analysis in increasingly complex ways, always in tension with our sense of what it means to be “human,” or whether it is even possible to claim such a category of life exists. Posthumanism, which often shares terrain with ecocriticism and animal studies, has further complicated our conception of the cosmos by dethroning the individual subject and disman- tling the comfortable categories through which we have interpreted our existence: we find our “selves” colonized by microbial beings, occupied and enhanced by mechanical inventions and contraptions, traversed by invisible forces from atmospheric changes to radiation, made vulnerable to our planet’s sufferings, and inspired by its capacity for renewal. New materialism, new vitalism and all the permutations of theory that have evolved and are evolving to account for our entanglements with lively matter have ensured, however, that our displacement from the center of creation feels less like a demotion than a happy event: from our previous occupation of the im- poverished, isolated space atop the mountain of creation, we might instead descend into the fecund plenitude of kinship with all things. Until now, however, the elements that compose this wave of scholarship on non-human entities have had no place to gather, no home that would nurture them as a collective project. “Perspectives on the Non-Human in Literature and Culture” provides that structure, giving critical treatments of all kinds of non-humans and humans a local habitation. In this series, readers and fellow critics will find animals of all descriptions, but also every other form of biological life; they will meet the non-biological, the micro- scopic, the ethereal, the intangible. It is our goal for the series to provide an encounter zone where all forms of human engagement with the non-human in all periods and national literatures can be explored, and where the discov- eries that result can speak to one another, as well as to readers and students. Birds and Other Creatures in Renaissance Literature Shakespeare, Descartes, and Animal Studies Rebecca Ann Bach Race Matters, Animal Matters Fugitive Humanism in African America, 1838–1934 Lindgren Johnson Plants in Contemporary Poetry Ecocriticism and the Botanical Imagination John Charles Ryan Meteorology and Physiology in Early Modern Culture Earthquakes, Human Identity, and Textual Representation Rebecca Totaro Novel Creatures Animal Life and the New Millennium Hilary Thompson Bestial Oblivion War, Humanism, and Ecology in Early Modern England Benjamin Bertram Stages of Transmutation Science Fiction, Biology, and Environmental Posthumanism Tom Idema The Poetics of Angling in Early Modern England Myra E. Wright Victorians and Their Animals Beast on a Leash Brenda Ayres For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge. com/Perspectives-on-the-Non-Human-in-Literature-and-Culture/ book-series/PNHLC Stages of Transmutation Science Fiction, Biology, and Environmental Posthumanism Tom Idema First published 2019 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of Tom Idema to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-0-415-78822-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-22547-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra Contents Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 1 Introduction: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy 38 2 Infection: Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Radio 73 3 Disintegration: Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach 104 4 Amalgamation: Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood 137 Coda: Bringing Literature to Life 166 Index 173 Acknowledgments Many people have made the writing of this book possible. I am grateful to Rosi Braidotti for offering incredible inspiration and support during my studies, which put me on the path of posthumanism. During the writing of my PhD thesis in the Department of Philosophy and Science Studies at Ra dboud University (funded by NWO, the Dutch research council), from which parts of this book are derived, my advisor, Hub Zwart, and co- advisor, Birgit Kaiser, offered continuous encouragement and feedback, which has been vital in my development as a scholar. I also thank my colleagues at Radboud, who created a stimulating environment for thinking about the societal dimensions of new advancements in biology: Jan van Baren- Nawrocka, Riyan van der Born, René ten Bos, Maria Cantore, Luca Consoli, Frans van Dam, Koen Dortmans, Martin Drenthen, Eric Dücker, Sanne van Hout, Kristy van Lammeren, Pieter Lemmens, Inge Mutsaers, Bart Penders, Meggie Pijnappel, Maud Radstake, Erwin van Ri jswoud, Gijs van der Starre, Laura Verbrugge, and Ron Welters. Thanks to Robert Mitchell for his invaluable advice and feedback during my research stay in the Department of English at Duke University in the fall of 2011. I would also like to thank Gerry Canavan, Melody Jue, and Priscilla Wald for their friendliness and great conversations on science fiction at Duke. In the past years, I have been privileged to participate in several research networks that boast some of the most exciting interdisciplinary research in the humanities and social sciences: the US and European branches of the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSA); the Centre for Society and the Life Sciences (CSG); the European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture, and the Environment (EASLCE); the Benelux Association for the Study of Culture and the Environment (BASCE); and the Dutch Onderzoekschool Literatuurstudies (OSL). Discussions

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