“A world of slow decay” – Extinction Narratives in Contemporary Anglophone Literature Hannah Klaubert | 10849343 University of Amsterdam Research Master Cultural Analysis Dr. Niall Martin | Dr. Tim Yaczo INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 3 ONE. Thylacine, Extinct .......................................................................................................... 11 TWO. Oryx Beisa, Near Threatened, and Red-Necked Crake, Least Concern ....................... 25 THREE. Irrawaddy River Dolphin, Vulnerable, and Royal Bengal Tiger, Endangered ......... 39 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................ 54 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 57 Hannah Klaubert | 2 We live in strange times, a little as if we were suspended between two histories, both of which speak of a world become “global.” One of them is familiar to us. It has the rhythm of news from the front in the great worldwide competition and has economic growth for its arrow of time. It has the clarity of evidence with regard to what it requires and promotes, but it is marked by a remarkable confusion as to its consequences. The other, by contrast, could be called distinct with regard to what is in the process of happening, but it is obscure with regard to what it requires, the response to give to what is in the process of happening. (Isabelle Stengers, In Catastrophic Times, 17) Hannah Klaubert | 3 INTRODUCTION The 2015 documentary Racing Extinction tackles illegal wildlife trade as one cause of the ongoing Sixth Mass Extinction which will, as has become clear by now, wipe a significant percentage of all existing species off planet Earth in foreseeable time.1 Already in its title the documentary points towards a major problem in framing extinction today: the tension between the singular tragedy of the loss of one type of giant manta rays, and a feeling of the absolute urgency of the matter, the scale and speed of the dying unprecedented since humans populated planet Earth. The causes for this extinction event range from habitat loss and - fragmentation, poaching, the spread of invasive species or deadly fungi through globalized trade to the carbonization of the oceans in anthropogenic climate change. The non-human species are disappearing fast; and it feels like we humans aren’t doing much to save them. On the contrary, the rise in extinction rates, currently more than 1000 times above the “background rate” which accompanies evolutionary change in between peak periods, is almost exclusively ascribed to human activity. (Barnosky et al. 51f) It is closely entangled with Western imperialist movements and the spreading of a system possibly best described as “Petro-Capitalism”.2 Based on the exploitation of natural resources, this globalized system has had human population more than double since the 1950s, leaving little space and resources to the non-human habitants of this planet. (cf. Heise 10f) 1 For a discussion of the scientific research behind this information, see: Barnosky, Anthony D., et al. “Has the Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction already arrived?” Nature 471.7336 (2011): 51-57. 2 For a more detailed account of the concept of Petro-Capitalism, see Barrett, Ross, and Daniel Worden (ed.). Oil Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014. The concept can be useful in describing our current societal organization as it links our social histories to the exploitation of materials of the Earth which are inextricably interwoven. Hannah Klaubert | 4 In this thesis, I will be looking at three contemporary Anglophone novels which engage with biodiversity loss and the concept of extinction: a) The Hunter (2000) by Australian author Julia Leigh, b) the first volume of US-based bestseller author Margaret Atwood’s dystopian trilogy, Oryx and Crake (2003), and c) Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide (2004). All three novels find their own specific ways of narrating how species extinction is negotiated in human culture, drawing on as well as defying stereotypical narrative forms. As literary critic Ursula Heise has shown, species extinction is often represented along the lines of a classic tragedy, with a “last of a kind” figure in the center. The tragedy of massive biodiversity loss becomes an ersatz stage on which the alienation of the “modern” human from Nature is negotiated. (“Nach der Natur”, Chapter 2, 47f) However, the novels I have chosen also find more differentiated entry-points into the topic, dealing with the above described tension between different temporalities of the current ecological crisis and their ethical implications. I will now first give a first short overview of the theoretical discussions around species loss and extinction in contemporary cultural theory, to then introduce the main concepts and theoretical background I will be working with throughout my analysis. Lastly, I will give a brief rundown of my chapters before I go on to introduce my first object. Extinction Theory. My engagement with the topic of species extinction was triggered through a general interest in ecologically engaged philosophy and cultural theory in the last years. With a growing acknowledgement of the material and ecological forces involved in human sense-making and the ontological questions tagging along, cultural theory has come to address the problem of extinction more thoroughly. Two corner marks are Claire Colebrook’s Essays on Extinction (published in two volumes, Death of the PostHuman and Sex After Life) and Raymond Brassier’s Nihil Unbound – Enlightenment and Extinction. These texts, Hannah Klaubert | 5 however, use the ongoing mass extinction event as a departing point for their own (post)human ontological quests – so that the fact of biodiversity loss is only a pathway to thinking about human extinction and the human condition in an age of (ecological) crisis. Therefore, these theories have proven mostly incompatible with my own research interests. On the other hand, a number of popular scientific books have investigated the history and workings of the current mass extinction, most famously David Quammen’s Song of the Dodo – Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction (1996) and Elisabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction – An Unnatural History (2015). They provide fascinating historical accounts of the rise of extinction as a concept in human thought, the ongoing extinction event and preservation efforts. Finally, at the intersection of these theoretical/philosophical and historical/scientific texts, above mentioned Ursula Heise has brought forward a very extensive study of extinction narratives and genres of biodiversity loss in her 2010 Nach der Natur – Artensterben und die moderne Kultur (“After Nature – Species Extinction and Modern Culture”). In this book, she investigates the biological concepts, cultural narratives and rhetoric structures that shape our understanding of biodiversity loss. Her research, with its vast collection of scientific, theoretical, artistic and literary material, forms the background for my own engagement with species extinction and contemporary literature. The year 2016 actually seems to be a pivotal moment in the critical engagement with biodiversity loss. Not only will a revised and translated version of Heise’s book be published under the title Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species (University of Chicago Press) this year; other forthcoming publications of 2016 include Ashley Dawson’s Extinction. A Radical History (OR Books), Myra Hird’s “Proliferation- Extinction-Anxiety and the Anthropocene Aesthetic” in the Critical Life Studies series of Columbia University Press, Vanishing America – Species Extinction, Racial Peril, and the Hannah Klaubert | 6 Origins of Conservation by Miles A. Powell (HUP), and Beth Shapiro: How to Clone a Mammoth – The Science of De-Extinction (PUP). One other event scheduled for this year will stir up discussion in the field of ecocriticism: 2016 also marks the target date for the “Subcommission on Quarternary Stratigraphy” to decide on behalf of the “International Commission of Stratigraphy” whether the Anthropocene, the Age of Humans, will officially be recognized as the current stratigraphic epoch. If they agree to accept the proposition, which was popularized in the early 2000s by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, the Anthropocene will officially supersede the current official epoch, the Holocene. (Boes and Marshall 60) The Anthropocene Narrative. The concept of the Anthropocene has already received a lot of attention in cultural theory and artistic practice during the last decade. (Boes and Marshall 60) It not only unravels geological thinking through the introduction of a new stratigraphic period, but also intertwines geological and ecological with ontological questions. Whether or not the epoch will be officially recognized by the Stratigraphic Commission, we have to live with the immense ecological and geological shifts currently under way – and we have to recognize that we humans are their main cause. The Anthropocene concept puts us humans as a geological force into the centre of the narrative, and at the same time dethrones the human as it defines us as one species among others on a planet which has existed long before and will persist after us. The Anthropocene dismisses human history as