Envisioning the anthropocene and posthumanism in science fiction and fantasy works: a study of the novels The Windup Girl, The Fifth Season, and short story “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow."

Abstract

This research addresses the notion of the Anthropocene – a term originally denoted a geological era where human activities are the predominant force in altering nature’s progress. The age of the Anthropocene as a mode of thought goes beyond its scientific definition and considerations of environmental impacts. The humanities importantly shed light on and contribute various theories related to the Anthropocene ranging from critical scrutiny of the techno-scientific enterprise, to displacement and identity politics to ethical dilemma and question of subjectivity in a posthuman society following the Anthropocene era. For the purpose of my research, I will analyze three science fiction and fantasy works, including the novels The Windup Girl and The Fifth Season and the short story “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow”. The Windup Girl depicts a near future global catastrophe where food and crop have become extinct and recurrent pandemics threaten near extinction of humans. “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow” depicts an alternate universe where space exploration and galactic colonization by humanoid species has been made possible. Sentience however is still a strictly humanoid category and when a group of explorers discover the presence of sentience in plant life in a faraway planet, they are rendered nearly on the verge of insanity as they try to project humanist epistemology onto them. Finally, The Fifth Season explores a vengeful planet and every “fifth season” marks an epochal period where the world comes close to ending. These work of fiction are not only a product of our present material state, but they also go beyond the “textual surface [and] into the signifying processes that constitute theme and character” (Hayles 1999, 39).