Nonhuman Agencies in the Twenty-First-Century Anglophone Novel

Preface: About the Book
Acknowledgements
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
Introduction: Narrating the Nonhuman
	Approaches to the Nonhuman
	The Nonhuman and the Novel Form
	Chapter Overview
	References
Section I: Nonhuman Poetics: Agency of Literary Forms
	Forms of Agency, Agency of Forms: Reading and Teaching More-Than-Human Fictions
		Introduction: Making Words Matter
		From Representations to Entanglement
		Rooting Intertextual Agencies in Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend (2018)
		Teaching More-Than-Human Intertextual Relationality
		References
	Nonhuman Agencies in and of Literature: Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s The Dragonfly Sea
		Introduction
		The Agency of Matter and Flat Ontologies
		Nonhuman Agencies in and of Literature
		More-Than-Human-Worlds in The Dragonfly Sea: Oceanic Cartographies
		Multispecies Interdependencies
		Reading with the Ocean
		References
	Deontologising the Nonhuman: Arthur Gordon Pym, Contemporary Literature, and the Limits of the Human
		Introduction: The Nonhuman at Peak Humanity
		The Nonhuman in Theory: Three Snapshots
		Literature at the Limits of the Human: The Afterlives of Arthur Gordon Pym
		Conclusion: Literature and the Dynamics of De-/Re-/In-/Non-/ …-humanisation
		References
Section II: Negotiating the Human in the Light of the Nonhuman
	Anthropogenesis: Ian McEwan’s Fictions of the Human
		Introduction
		The Human and Its Others
		Literary Fiction as Anthropology
		Encapsulating the Human: Nutshell
		Problems of Scale: Solar
		Human Technology: Machines Like Me
		Conclusion
		References
	Arctic Snowmobilities: Encounters with Sled Dogs in Gary Paulsen’s Winterdance
		Introduction
		Moving with Sled Dogs
		Moving in/on Snow: Mapping Arctic Space
		Human: Nonhuman Encounters—Moving Between Identity Positions
		Conclusion
		References
	Reframing the Nonhuman: Grievability and the Value of Life in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go
		Introduction
		Encountering Alterity: The Process of Reframing in Never Let Me Go
		Stories that Touch Us: Affective Storytelling in Never Let Me Go
		Conclusion
		References
	Hopeless Necromantics: Decomposition and Transcorporeal Love in Jim Crace’s Being Dead
		Introduction
		Life After Death: Decomposition, Transcorporeality, and (Non)Human Agency
		Surviving the Death of Cells: Necromantic Corpses and Transcorporeal Love
		Wisdom Widely Honest: Being Dead’s Necropoetics and Epistemic Accessibility
		Conclusion
		References
Section III: Imagining Biocentric Communities
	The Gender Politics of Trees
		Introduction
		Men, Women, and Trees
		How to See a Tree
		Arboreal Communities
		Conclusion
		References
	‘Mycorrhizal Multiplicities’: Mapping Collective Agency in Richard Powers’s The Overstory
		Introduction: Trees Talk
		Theoretical (Under)ground Work
		Organisation: Mapping Networks
		Composition: Mycorrhizal Messaging
		Conclusion
		References
	The Climate Crisis and Affective Nonhuman Encounters: Ali Smith’s Autumn (2016) and Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13 (2017)
		Introduction
		Climate Change: Not a Good Story
		Affective Nonhuman Encounters
		Ali Smith’s Autumn
		Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13
		Conclusion
		References
	Postcolonial Fictions of the Anthropocene: Tracing Nonhuman Agency in Shubhangi Swarup’s Latitudes of Longing
		Introduction: Of Binaries and Multiplicities
		Postcolonial and Ecocritical Convergence in Human-Nonhuman Relations
		Shubhangi Swarup’s Latitudes of Longing (2020)
		“Ocean, Sea, Ice Snow, Mist”: Water as an Interconnective Force
		Conclusion
		References
Section IV: Negotiating Reality: Approaching the Nonhuman’s Inescapable Alterity
	Cthulhu Calling: Weird Intimacy and Estrangement in the Anthropocene
		The Weird in Theory
		“The Willows”: Participation and Alienation
		Annihilation: Empathy and Ecstasy
		Conclusion
		References
	“Just a Surface”: Anamorphic Perspective and Nonhuman Narration in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Strange Bird
		Introduction
		Anamorphic Anthropo(s)cenes
		Three Turns
		Scales, Depths, Surfaces
		Affect, Agency, Affirmation
		Conclusion
		References
	“All Life Matters, or None Does”: Connecting Human and Nonhuman Worlds in Ambelin Kwaymullina’s The Tribe Series
		Introduction
		“Spirits that Matter”: Kwaymullina’s Aboriginal Young Adult Fiction in the Context of Current Literary and Cultural Theory
		Unheard Voices: Forging Connections with the Firstwood, the Saurs, and Other Living Creatures
		Human, AI, Machine, and Cyber-Dog: Synthetic Life as Part of the Entangled Whole
		Conclusion
		References
Index