Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media: From Annihilation to High Life and Beyond

by Julia A. Empey (Editor), Russell J.A. Kilbourn (Editor)

Overview

Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media: From Annihilation to High Life and Beyond places posthumanism and feminist theory into dialogue with contemporary science fiction film and media. This essay collection is intimately invested in the debates around the posthuman and the critical posthumanities within a feminist critical-theoretical framework.

In this posthumanist light, science fiction as a genre allows for new imaginings of human-technological relations, while it can also be the site of a critique of human exceptionalism and essentialism. In this way, science fiction affords unique opportunities for the scholarly investigation of the relevance and relative applicability of specific posthumanist themes and questions in a particularly rich and wide-ranging popular cultural field of production. One of the reasons for this suitability is the genre's historically longstanding relationship with the critical investigation of gender, specifically the position and relative empowerment of women.

The original analyses presented here pay close attention to audiovisual style (including game mechanics), facilitating the critical interrogation of the issues and questions around posthumanism. Where typically the mention of SF in the posthumanist context calls to mind a whole set of (often clichéd) tropes-the cyborg, technologically augmented bodies, AI subjectivities, etc.-this volume's thirteen chapters analyze specific examples of contemporary SF cinema that engage in meaningful ways with the burgeoning field of critical posthumanism, and that utilize such films to interrogate posthumanist and feminist as well as humanistic ideas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501398407
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/21/2023
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Julia A. Empey is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge, UK, and currently the book reviews editor at Interconnections: The Jourbanal of Posthumanism. Her research and publication interests focus on contemporary literature and film, feminist and posthumanist theory, and science fiction literature, film, and media. Her other interests include eco-criticism, cosmopolitan studies, and political theory.

Russell J. A. Kilbourban is Professor and Chair of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. He publishes on memory, film, comparative studies, critical posthumanism, and postsecular cinema. His books include The Cinema of Paolo Sorrentino: Commitment to Style (2020), W.G. Sebald's Postsecular Redemption: Catastrophe with Spectator (2018), The Memory Effect: The Remediation of Memory in Literature and Film (co-edited with Eleanor Ty; 2013), and Cinema, Memory, Modernity: The Representation of Memory from the Art Film to Transnational Cinema (2010). Dr. Kilbourban is one of the founders of the Posthumanism Research Network (based at Brock University and Wilfrid Laurier), an associate editor at Interconnections: The Jourbanal of Posthumanism, and a member of the editorial board of the Jourbanal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies. His current project is on posthuman memory.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Preface

Introduction-Feminist Refractions of the Posthuman
Julia A. Empey(University of Cambridge, UK) and Russell J. A. Kilbourban (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada)

PART ONE: Posthuman Bodies and Identities
1. Indigenous Futurist and Women-Centred Dystopian Film
Missy Molloy (Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand)
2. Gender, Sex, and Feminist AI: 13 Theses on Her
Sarah Stulz (Independent Scholar, Switzerland)
3. Her: A Posthuman Love Story
Zorianna Zurba (Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada)
4. Posthuman Mothers and Reproductive Biovalue in Blade Runner: 2049 and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Jerika Sanderson (University of Waterloo, Canada)
5. Desirable and Undesirable Cyborg Bodies in the Mass Effect Video Game Series
Sarah Stang (Brock University, Canada)

PART TWO: Posthuman Environments and Entanglements
6. Material Entanglements and Posthuman Female Subjectivity in Annihilation
Evdokia Stefanopoulou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)
7. Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin: Female Embodiment and Ecology
Meraj Dhir (Harvard University, USA)
8. Living in Colour: Feminist and Posthumanist Ontology in Upstream Color
Emily Sanders(Queen's University, Canada)
9. Ascendance to Trans-Corporeality or Assimilation to Whiteness: The Posthuman Imaginaries of Annihilation and Midsommar
Olivia Stowell (University of Michigan, USA)

PART THREE: Posthumanist Endings and Futures
10. Digital Ecologies: Posthuman Convergences in Abzû and Horizon: Zero Dawn
Sarah Best (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada)
11. From Rogue Planets to Black Holes: Revaluing Death in Melancholia and High Life
Julia A. Empey(University of Cambridge, UK)
12. 'Originary Twoness': Flashbacks and the Materiality of Memory in Annihilation, High Life, and Arrival
Russell J. A. Kilbourban (Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada)
13. Coming to Terms with Our Own Ends: Failed Reproduction and the End of the Hu/man in Claire Denis' High Life and Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lija's Aniara
Elif Sendur (Rutgers University, USA) and Allison Mackey (Universidad de la República, Uruguay)

References
Index

Editorial Reviews

Fans of Rosi Braidotti's work are in for a particular treat with Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media. Taking in games, films and other media objects, the book offers a compelling range of interventions, often circling back to Braidotti, and which at their most exciting are well attuned to the need for intersectional feminism not only to make sense of our contemporary mediascape, but also to forge a new conceptual framework through which to prepare for the changes that our planet requires (and inevitably faces). Critiquing key recent media texts from the west, including Annihilation, Her, High Life, Bioshock and Mass Effect, this is a must-read for anyone invested in our present-day (post)humanities.” —William Brown, Assistant Professor of Film, The University of British Columbia, Canada

“Our current mythologies are established in films and media. This book allows for new trajectories of radical imagination to be traced, in the often still anthropocentric field of media production. Posthuman feminist awareness, multispecies justice and human and non-human dignity are thus envisioned and manifested. This book is a precious gift to our society, in need of healing and transformation.” —Francesca Ferrando, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy at NYU-Liberal Studies, New York University, USA

From the Publisher