Order of Our Lady Cicada and Mapping (non)representations of metamorphoses, tricksters and insects through seven stories Michelle Braunstein, B.Soc.Sci, B.A(Hons), Grad Dip.Ed This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Murdoch University, 2019 Declaration I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and be- lief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgment has been made in the text. 2 Abstract This doctoral thesis in creative writing comprises a novella — Order of Our Lady Cicada — and an exegesis which maps (non)representations of metamorphoses, tricksters and insects through seven stories. The creative writing component is a literary artefact and a piece of research in itself. The exegesis is a further construction of new knowledge, addressing the novella among six other literary texts. The two pieces — novella and exegesis — are imbricated and both draw on theories from post-humanism, including New Materialisms and critical animal studies. Overall, this thesis prob- lematises both representation and liberal humanism, seeking a corporeal relation with insects, trick- sters and metamorphoses in the texts without settling on easy meaning-making. I have formed the two components of the dissertation by engaging methodologies of rhizomatic research, phenomeno- logical research, “agnostic” research, voice-hearing and ficto-criticism. 3 Acknowledgements It is because of many beings and becomings that this doctoral project has been possible. I am in immense gratitude for all of the support that has inspired, nurtured and energised me throughout this process. I am deeply appreciative of the love, wisdom, provocations, beauty, suggestions, stillnesses, collab- orations, conversations, challenges, insights, interventions, encouragement and cups of tea from and with: David Moody, Simone Lazaroo, Anthony Hack, Willa Hack, Esther Braunstein, Danny Braunstein, Jack Braunstein, Jude Braunstein, Anna Braunstein, Tiffany Gee, Toby Kennedy, Steve Dyer, Sandra Antunes, Kate Balme, Ikuko Takahashi, Gyanamala Hooke, Yuko Fujiwara, Jaya Penelope Mullumby, Gwydion Mullumby Dubh, Karun Cowper, Fefe Twaits, Fausto Buttà, Brigitte Rieder, Fumie Tsuru, Zinta Vilde, Lian Sinclair, Dean Merlino, Sudeep Lingamneni, David Cross, Jem No- ble, James Oliver, Patricia Moynihan, Laurel Cohn, Geraldine Devas, Kelly Kodama Hamilton, Ryuji Kodama, Mira Gojak, Fiona Huxley, Christina Leach, Tori Kennedy, Thea Rogers, Tracey Haras, Jo Violet, Jacqui Hagendoorn, Serina Mukerjee, Joy Mukerjee, Amber Galbraith, Kathryn Vincent, Samantha Parke, Guy Boneseed Brunette, Neil “Pipe” McCann, Sarah Craig, Luke Craig and of course, Magda Levy, Iboga tabernanthe and the ancestors. 4 Table of contents Declaration i Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Introduction 1 Order of Our Lady Cicada 6 Exegesis Title Page 91 Chapter One: Literature Review 94 Animals/Insects: (Non)representations and Metamorphoses/Becomings. 95 The trickster figure 111 Chapter Two: Methodology 119 Chapter Three: The Beetle’s Hum 131 Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis 133 Octavia E. Butler’s Bloodchild 144 Chapter Four: I Heard a Fly Buzz — When I Died 154 George Langelaan’s short story “The Fly” 155 Kurt Neumann’s 1958 film The Fly 163 David Cronenberg’s 1986 film The Fly 169 Chapter Five: Two Bloods 180 Two Bloods Part I 180 Two Bloods Part II 196 (Non)conclusion.. 209 Works cited 212 5 Introduction (Image courtesy of Darvil McBride) From your hips down to your feet I want to make a long journey. I am smaller than an insect. Pablo Neruda This doctoral thesis centres on a new work of creative writing, a novella called Order of Our Lady Cicada, and also comprises an exegesis, “Mapping (non)representations of metamorphoses, trick- sters and insects through seven stories.” The creative writing component is a literary artefact and a project of research in itself. The exegesis is a further construction of new knowledge, addressing the novella among six other literary texts. The central question I am asking is, in the context of the An- thropocene, what theories inform (non)representations of insects, tricksters and metamorphoses in literature and how can these, alongside practice-based research, trace the quest to “become”? My practice-based thesis in creative writing draws on post-humanist theories to trace (non)representa- tions of insects, tricksters and metamorphoses through seven stories. The two pieces — novella and exegesis — are not two separate processual currents. They have always been imbricated, provoking and stimulating one another throughout the process of making them. The topic itself is about de-centring the concept of the disembodied and immaterial mind toward the larger political project of unthinking and undoing liberal humanism. Appropriately, my creative praxis (the novella and the ficto-critical piece) are an embodied means for locating and constructing knowledge. I use them to trouble the liberal humanist paradigm, because of the obvi- ous system failures of capitalism and liberalism—ideologies spawned from humanism—and the Anthropocene throws the importance of doing so into sharp relief.1 I am not attempting here to propose an alternative model or to create more territory; my in- tervention and provocation is oriented around undoing and unmaking, a continual work of de- colonising totalised systems of meaning. My process in making these works has been nomadic and non-teleological. As part of this, I have purposefully adopted reticence to conclude or make closed, linear analysis in the exegesis or concrete meaning in the fiction. In all parts and as a whole, this dissertation is an exploration. In this project, I explore ways that insects are (non)represented, without basing my study in science: entomology is a wide and varied field, and I make no scientific truth claims here about in- sects or their behaviours. Rather, I map non(representations) of insects, using critical theory, as well as my creative process, as tools to do so. As part of this, I problematise representation as a way of 1 According to Tom Cohen, Were a malicious god to entertain herself by giving 21st century mortals a shiny-toy word-name to chatter as distraction about while tipping points passed which ren- dered their doom irreversible, that word-name, self-regarding, would be “the An- thropocene.” (1) Indeed, I include the term with the awareness that it has commanded a certain gloss or name-drop kudos amongst scholars since it was first coined by Crutzen in 2000, who reported in 2002, For the past three centuries, the effects of humans on the global environment have escalated. Because of these anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, global cli- mate may depart significantly from natural behaviour for many millennia to come. It seems appropriate to assign the term ‘Anthropocene’ to the present, in many ways human-dominated, geological epoch, supplementing the Holocene — the warm period of the past 10–12 millennia. The Anthropocene could be said to have started in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when analyses of air trapped in polar ice showed the beginning of growing global concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane. Implicit in naming the present epoch the Anthropocene is a sense of meta-temporality and of transcendence, as though the term is being articulated by future scientists looking back; as though we have surpassed our- selves somehow. There are other names too for this era of melting ice sheets, extreme weather events, mass extinctions and displacements, such as “capitalocene” (Moore 6) and the “necrocene” (O’Brien 116). I would argue, that no matter how precise thinkers become at articulating this era, the fact remains that these are in- deed “shiny-toy word-names to chatter” (Cohen 1) while we lurch further and further into irreversible dam- age. 2 knowing, and consider a more nuanced Deleuzian approach, that “we can, and should, intuit the forces of desire that produce representations” (Colebrook xxxii), rather than interrogate representa- tion alone. I also engage with the ideas of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, who, in Production of Presence: what meaning cannot convey, attempts to dethrone the dominance of the concept of meaning in the humanities, because “it is time to break certain discursive taboos (time to get one’s hands dirty)” (78). He proposes various concepts to help overcome the “exclusive status of interpretation in the humanities” (78), among them, delineating meaning-cultures and presence-cultures which can be looked to in order to theorise beyond hermeneutics (80). While I am making some meaning in this thesis — this is inescapable — I specifically work with Gumbrecht’s interrogation by dethron- ing attempts at transcendent meaning, as contained in metaphor, instead exploring that which is more immanent, concrete and therefore powerfully present through my chosen works. I am also inspired by theory from within New Materialism, particularly the ways in which this theoretical province locates post-structuralist theory in a more material and intimately embod- ied way than its linguistic counterparts. The concept of metamorphosis, rather than metaphor, is key within New Materialist conceptions of fictional insectoid embodiment, and I locate this project within the foregrounded immanence of this distinction, looking particularly