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  • Stages of Transmutation: Science Fiction, Biology, and Environmental Posthumanism

    Stages of Transmutation by Idema, Tom;

    Science Fiction, Biology, and Environmental Posthumanism

    Series: Perspectives on the Non-Human in Literature and Culture;

      • GET 20% OFF

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      • Publisher's listprice GBP 145.00
      • The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.

        69 273 Ft (65 975 Ft + 5% VAT)
      • Discount 20% (cc. 13 855 Ft off)
      • Discounted price 55 419 Ft (52 780 Ft + 5% VAT)

    69 273 Ft

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    Availability

    Estimated delivery time: In stock at the publisher, but not at Prospero's office. Delivery time approx. 3-5 weeks.
    Not in stock at Prospero.

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    Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.

    Short description:

    This book develops the concept of environmental posthumanism through analyses of acclaimed science fiction novels by Greg Bear, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, and Kim Stanley Robinson, in which the human species suddenly transforms in response to new or changing environments.

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    Long description:

    Stages of Transmutation: Science Fiction, Biology, and Environmental Posthumanism develops the theoretical perspective of environmental posthumanism through analyses of acclaimed science fiction novels by Greg Bear, Octavia Butler, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Jeff VanderMeer, in which the human species suddenly transforms in response to new or changing environments. Narrating dramatic ecological events of human-to-nonhuman encounter, invasion, and transmutation, these novels allow the reader to understand the planet as an unstable stage for evolution and the human body as a home for bacteria and viruses. Idema argues that by drawing tension from biological theories of interaction and emergence (e.g. symbiogenesis, epigenetics), these works unsettle conventional relations among characters, technologies, story-worlds, and emplotment, refiguring the psychosocial work of the novel as always already biophysical. Problematizing a desire to compartmentalize and control life as the property of human subjects, these novels imagine life as an environmentally mediated, staged event that enlists human and nonhuman actors. Idema demonstrates how literary narratives of transmutation render biological lessons of environmental instability and ecological interdependence both meaningful and urgent—a vital task in a time of mass extinction, hyperpollution, and climate change. This volume is an important intervention for scholars of the environmental humanities, posthumanism, literature and science, and science and technology studies.



    "Stages of Transmutation is an example of how interdisciplinarity can instead enrich thought, an increasingly important exercise in light of the social, political, ethical, and environmental challenges we face." - Shelby Brewster, Michigan State University

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    Table of Contents:

    Acknowledgments


    Introduction



    1. Introduction: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy



    2. Infection: Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Radio



    3. Disintegration: Jeff Vandermeer’s The Southern Reach



    4. Amalgamation: Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood



    Coda: Bringing Literature to Life Bibliography


    Index

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