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Sublime Extinctions in Anthropocene Fiction: Literary representations of geologic force in works by Ballard, McCarthy and Watkins

Teeland, Samuel LU (2018) ENGK01 20172
English Studies
Abstract
This essay examines representations of extinction in a selection of Anthropocene fiction. The Anthropocene is a potential new geological epoch, in which the human species capacity for massive ecological transformation is rivalling that of geologic processes. As the Anthropocene has grown into a subject of cultural significance, critical literary scholarship has identified implications for a possible Anthropocene fiction. A representational challenge in this regard is how to render extinction comprehensible in literature. This essay examines how extinction is manifested as a representational problem for literature in three fictional works. It explores scale, threshold and continuity in J.G Ballard’s The Drowned World (1962); archive,... (More)
This essay examines representations of extinction in a selection of Anthropocene fiction. The Anthropocene is a potential new geological epoch, in which the human species capacity for massive ecological transformation is rivalling that of geologic processes. As the Anthropocene has grown into a subject of cultural significance, critical literary scholarship has identified implications for a possible Anthropocene fiction. A representational challenge in this regard is how to render extinction comprehensible in literature. This essay examines how extinction is manifested as a representational problem for literature in three fictional works. It explores scale, threshold and continuity in J.G Ballard’s The Drowned World (1962); archive, absence and futurity in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006); and speculation, desire and the rhetorical device of catalog in Claire Vaye Watkins’ Gold Fame Citrus (2015). I argue that these representational limits are explicable through the concept of the sublime, which in the Anthropocene occurs in response to significantly different relational terms to the nonhuman other. (Less)
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author
Teeland, Samuel LU
supervisor
organization
course
ENGK01 20172
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
Anthropocene, Extinction, Sublime, J.G. Ballard, Cormac McCarthy, Claire Vaye Watkins
language
English
id
8934305
date added to LUP
2018-01-31 08:52:54
date last changed
2018-01-31 08:52:54
@misc{8934305,
  abstract     = {{This essay examines representations of extinction in a selection of Anthropocene fiction. The Anthropocene is a potential new geological epoch, in which the human species capacity for massive ecological transformation is rivalling that of geologic processes. As the Anthropocene has grown into a subject of cultural significance, critical literary scholarship has identified implications for a possible Anthropocene fiction. A representational challenge in this regard is how to render extinction comprehensible in literature. This essay examines how extinction is manifested as a representational problem for literature in three fictional works. It explores scale, threshold and continuity in J.G Ballard’s The Drowned World (1962); archive, absence and futurity in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006); and speculation, desire and the rhetorical device of catalog in Claire Vaye Watkins’ Gold Fame Citrus (2015). I argue that these representational limits are explicable through the concept of the sublime, which in the Anthropocene occurs in response to significantly different relational terms to the nonhuman other.}},
  author       = {{Teeland, Samuel}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Sublime Extinctions in Anthropocene Fiction: Literary representations of geologic force in works by Ballard, McCarthy and Watkins}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}