Overview
- Includes an interview with Slonczewski and the contributors
- Conversant with the areas of contemporary science fiction, feminism, and posthumanism
- Considers Slonczewski’s depictions of cultural ecologies that can bridge radical differences and defuse cycles of violence as a roadmap for the future
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture (PSSPC)
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About this book
This volume presents the first collection of essays dedicated to the science fiction of microbiologist Joan Slonczewski. Posthuman Biopolitics consolidates the scholarly literature on Slonczewski’s fiction and demonstrates fruitful lines of engagement for the critical, cultural, and theoretical treatment of her characters, plots, and storyworlds. Her novels treat feminism in relation to scientific practice, resistance to domination, pacifism versus militarism, the extension of human rights to nonhuman and posthuman actors, biopolitics and posthuman ethics, and symbiosis and communication across planetary scales. Posthuman Biopolitics explores the breadth and depth of Joan Slonczewski’s vision, uncovering the reflective ethical practice that informs her science fiction.
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Keywords
Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“Collectively, these essays provide a marvelous starting point for the continued exploration of the significant work of Joan Slonczewski … . The fiction of Joan Slonczewski … merits continued academic study as well as incorporation into undergraduate and graduate courses. Posthuman Biopolitics is an excellent collection. It should be in every academic library … .” (Bruce Lindsley Rockwood, SFRA Review, Vol. 52 (1), 2022) “Joan Slonczewski is both a working scientist and a visionary science fiction writer. Her work is grounded in new understandings of biological complexity; it asks us to extend our sympathies beyond the human, and to engage on equal terms with the other organisms with whom we share our world. This volume is the first to explore Slonczewski's work in depth; it establishes her crucial importance at a time of impending environmental catastrophe.”
—Steven Shaviro, DeRoy Professor of English, Wayne State University, USA
“At long last—a volume devoted to the writing of Joan Slonczewski! This magnificent, wide-ranging collection of essays demonstrates the importance of Slonczewski’s work for feminist science, speculative fiction, ecology, posthumanism, biopolitics, multispecies communities, symbiotic relations, microbial life, and more ethical futures. The essays, as well as the interview with Slonczewski, provide essential contexts for understanding her work, as they advance broader discussions regarding speculative fiction, biology, and science studies.”
—Stacy Alaimo, Professor of English, University of Oregon, USA
“I truly welcome this publication exploring the diversity and complexity of Joan Slonczewski’s fiction. The authors unpack Slonczewski’s masterful interweaving of multiple concerns and ethics, highlighting her questioning of what an ideal society might be, her acute perception of the blindspots of any centrism, as well as her reconceptualization of what interspecies ethics means. The wealth of perspectives makes this volume a much needed response to the diverse crises of the 21st century.”
—Carmen Flys-Junquera, Profesora Honorífica de Investigación, University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain, and Chief Editor of Ecozon@. European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment
Editors and Affiliations
About the editor
Bruce Clarke is Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Literature and Science in the Department of English at Texas Tech University, USA. His books include Gaian Systems: Lynn Margulis, Neocybernetics, and the End of the Anthropocene (2020) and Neocybernetics and Narrative (2014). With Manuela Rossini, Clarke also co-edited The Cambridge Companion to Literature and the Posthuman (2017).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Posthuman Biopolitics
Book Subtitle: The Science Fiction of Joan Slonczewski
Editors: Bruce Clarke
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Science and Popular Culture
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36486-1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-36485-4Published: 21 January 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-36488-5Published: 21 January 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-36486-1Published: 20 January 2020
Series ISSN: 2731-4359
Series E-ISSN: 2731-4367
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 187
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Contemporary Literature, Fiction, North American Literature, Literature and Technology/Media, Bioethics, Genre