Eco-Performativity in Multivalent Textual Ecologies
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ECO-PERFORMATIVITY IN MULTIVALENT TEXTUAL ECOLOGIES By Asma Mansoor NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF MODERN LANGUAGES ISLAMABAD September, 2017 Eco-Performativity in Multivalent Textual Ecologies By Asma Mansoor M. Phil., National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, 2014 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In English To FACULTY OF LANGUAGES NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF MODERN LANGUAGES, ISLAMABAD Asma Mansoor, 2014 NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF MODERN LANGUAGES FACULTY OF HIGHER STUDIES THESIS AND DEFENSE APPROVAL FORM The undersigned certify that they have read the following thesis, examined the defense, are satisfied with the overall exam performance, and recommend the thesis to the Faculty of Higher Studies for acceptance: Thesis Title: Eco-performativity in Multivalent Textual Ecologies Submitted By: Asma Mansoor Registration #: PD-S14-169 Doctor of Philosophy Degree name in full English Literature Name of Discipline Dr. Shaheena Ayub Bhatti __________________________ Name of Research Supervisor Signature of Research Supervisor Prof. Dr. Muhammad Safeer Awan __________________________ Name of Dean (FHS) Signature of Dean (FHS) Maj. Gen. Zia Uddin Najam HI(M) (R) ___________________________ Name of Rector Signature of Rector Date CANDIDATE DECLARATION FORM I Asma Mansoor Daughter of Sheikh Mansoor Ahmed Registration # PD-S14-169 Discipline English Literature Candidate of Doctor of Philosophy at the National University of Modern Languages do hereby declare that the thesis Eco-performativity in Multivalent Textual Ecologies submitted by me in partial fulfillment of PhD degree, is my original work, and has not been submitted or published earlier. I also solemnly declare that it shall not, in future, be submitted by me for obtaining any other degree from this or any other university or institution. I also understand that if evidence of plagiarism is found in my thesis/dissertation at any stage, even after the award of a degree, the work may be cancelled and the degree revoked. Signature of Candidate 11th September 2017 Date Asma Mansoor Name of Candidate ABSTRACT Thesis Title: Eco-performativity in Multivalent Textual Ecologies Intervening within contemporary ecosophy, this thought experiment reframes the idea of the human while taking into account nonhuman semiotic potential. It postulates literary theory and texts as agents that participate in the material world’s meaning- making tableau while subverting the nature/culture and human/nonhuman divides. Through a transdisciplinary itinerary, my work provides a much needed intervention within the field of literature as it foregrounds the narrative potential of nonhuman actants and its impact on the assumptions regarding the human body. Since stories have historically prescribed the centrality of the human as a logocentric agent, I argue that stories can also be used to dismantle this anthropocentric tilt. In so doing, they can establish the idea of a reparative humanness that takes into account the material- semiotic agency of the world within which the human is enmeshed. Via the idea of textual ecology, I read the world as a kinetic compendium of human and nonhuman stories that defy absolutes and break down onto-epistemological enclosures. Therefore, my theorization takes on board Gerald Vizenor’s The Heirs of Columbus and Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, along with two hypertexts, i.e., Mark Amerika’s Grammatron and Stephanie Strickland & Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo’s V:Vniverse to propose a re-reading of the human in terms of a compound subjectivity. This compound subjectivity inaugurates a re-reading of human embodiment as an editable assemblage that is in a state of continual becoming due to its enmeshment with various nonhuman phenomena. Since the human body is no longer a fixed entity, human performativity is also equally malleable. Therefore, I propose the idea of Eco- performativity, which invites a search for new stories regarding our understanding of the world we live in through their mediation with nonhuman narrative agency. In so doing, I have blended the pertinent tenets of Jacques Derrida, Karen Barad, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Bruno Latour, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Timothy Morton, Rosi Braidotti and Donna Haraway, etc. My research advocates the stance that in narrating more egalitarian performative accounts of human and nonhuman agency, literary texts and theories function as open-ended semiotic systems which permit a weaving of new stories regarding the co-constitutive participation of the human and nonhuman in the meaning-making processes of the world. This provides the space for the renewal of humanities that could raise further possibilities for thinking Posthuman subjectivities and the new structures of dominance that might emerge as a consequence. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page THESIS AND DEFENSE APPROVAL FORM…………………… ii CANDIDATE DECLARATION FORM …………………………………… iii ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………… iv TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………… vi LIST OF SCREEN SHOTS………………………………………….…….. ix LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………. x LIST OF EQUATIONS……………………………………………... xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT…………………………………………... xii DEDICATION ………………………………………………………. xiii I OF STORIES AND BECOMING-HUMAN ……………………….. 1 1.1 Introduction ………………………………………………......................... 1 1.2 Ecological Alterations and Literary Texts ……………………………… 4 1.3 In the Beginning was the Code: Rethinking the Notion of Language…… 8 1.4 Eco-performativity and Textual Ecology: Re-mediating Stories ….…….. 13 1.5 Rethinking the Ecology of Literature ….………………………………… 17 1.6 Research Objectives……………………………………………………… 18 1.7 Research Questions………………………………………………………. 19 1.8 Selected Texts…………………………………………………………….. 19 1.9 Significance …………….……………………………………………….. 23 II CONCEPTUAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND METHODOLOGICAL 27 APPROACH 2.1 Conceptual Categories and Delimitations…….………………………….. 28 2.2 Methodological Approach…….………………………………………….. 30 III ECO-PERFORMATIVITY AND MATERIAL-DISCURSIVE 40 ENTANGLEMENTS: A REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE ………………………………………………………….. 3.1 Re-analyzing the Man/Nature Binary……………………………….......... 41 3.2 Reformulating ‘Ecology’ and Anthropocentrism…………………….…… 46 3.3 Formation of New Collectives: Narratives, Textual Ecology and Code … 53 3.4 Eco-performativity and Literature……………….......…………………… 60 IV STORIES AND THE VITAL NARRATIVE AGENCY OF 75 MATTER……………………………………………………………....… 4.1 The Code and Textual Ecology: Literary Inscriptions of Immanent 76 Intimacies………………………………………………………………… 4.2 Multivalent Textual Ecologies………………...........………………….… 86 4.3 Generative Becomings and Creative Expression in Literary Texts………. 91 4.4 Digital Texts and Textual Ecology: Interventions within Performative 106 Environmental Debates…………………….......…………………………. V MATTERING AND THE REWRITTEN HUMAN AND 112 NONHUMAN……………………………………………………………. 5.1 Rearticulating Embodiment: Literary Texts and Eco-performativity….... 113 5.2 Semiotic-Agentic Materiality: Literarity and Literacity of Paper-Based 116 and Digital Literary Texts……………….......…………………………… VI ECO-PERFORMATIVE PRACTICES IN LITERARY TEXTS: 147 IMPLICATIONS AND SCOPE……………………………………….. 6.1 Literature, the Infinitization of Semiotics and the Overthrowing of 147 Ontology .………………………………………………………………. 6.2 Revising the Grammar of Social Functionalism: The De-anthropologized 152 Human and Literary Texts……………..…………….….......……………. 6.3 Thinking beyond the Human in Paper-Based Literary 159 Texts……………………………………..……………………………..… 6.4 Polyvocal Becomings in Digital Literary Texts………………………….. 164 6.5 Eco-performative Accounts, Literature and Literary Theory……...……... 169 6.6 Eco-performative Theory and Modifications in Human Subjectivity……. 175 6.7 Eco-performativity and the Modeling of Literary Theory………………............. 181 VII OF BECOMING-CODE: LITERARY TEXTS AND THE ROLE OF 184 THE HUMANITIES……………………………………………………........... 7.1 Textual Ecology: Reading Eco-performative Literary Theory as an 186 Embodied Practice……………………………………………………… 7.2 Intersubjective Humanness: The Polyvalent Human…………………… 192 7.3 Re-weaving Narratives and Reviving the Humanities………………….. 198 7.4 Digi-Semiosis, Bio-Semiosis and Zoo-Semiosis in Digital and Literary 201 Texts: The Reconstructions of Ecology………………................…….. 7.5 Possibilities for Future Debates……………….......……………………… 206 WORKS CITED……………….......…….......……………….................. 217 LIST OF SCREEN SHOTS Screen Shot 1 from V: Vniverse.....................................................................................................73 Screen Shot 2 from V: Vniverse…………………………………………………………………109 Screen shot 3 from V: Vniverse………………………………………………………………… 143 Screen shot 4 from V: Vniverse………………………………………………………………… 143 Screen shot 5 from V: Vniverse………………………………………………………………… 144 Screen shot 6 from V: Vniverse………………………………………………………………… 168 LIST OF FIGURES Figure A The dynamics of the parallax gap ........................................................................................ ….51 Figure B Vectors and lines of flight in a material-discursive phenomenon………………….149 Figure C Eco-performativity, the parallax gap and the human and nonhuman gazes…………………………………………………………………………...…………….… 156 Figure D The interconnections among different ecological tiers…………………………….177 LIST OF EQUATIONS Equation 1 ............................................................................................................................... ....36 Equation 2 ……………………………………………………………………………..……….77 Equation 3……..………………….......………………………………………………………...82