Posthumanism

Climate Collapse and the Rise of the Posthuman: A Study on Karen Malpede’s Other Than We: A Cli-Fi Fable

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Supthita Pal1* & Dhishna Pannikot2
1Ph.D. Scholar in English, School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Management, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, India. *Corresponding author.
2Associate Professor of English, School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Management, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, India.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 16, Issue 3, 2024. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v16n3.13g
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Abstract

As a reaction to the excessive human centrism of the Anthropocene era, posthumanism comes into force to redefine the age-old binaries of nature and culture, and the human and the nonhuman. Eco-conscious authors strive hard to register their responses to the issues of contemporary ecological crises and the anthropogenic ruptures of nature’s equilibrium. Considering the major role of ecological plays in addressing this current issue, the present paper undertakes a textual analysis of the contemporary American playwright-activist Karen Malpede’s ecological play, Other Than We (2019). The text tries to navigate how the technology-driven human narrows down the earth’s ecosystem to a dystopian dome. The playwright depicts how four nonconformists try to adapt to the prevailing adverse atmosphere by resorting to the age-old idea of turning back to nature. It is evident in the text that to restore the lost natural order of environment and social structure, the characters pin hope on their newly born, the Post-Homo Sapiens species, the eponymous “other-than-human” creatures. Using the text under consideration, the paper studies human-technology intervention and its impact on the women subjected to deplorable conditions in the dome. This article aims to analyze the author’s resort to the post-human perspective as a strategy to challenge prevailing anthropocentrism in the contemporary world.

Keywords:Anthropocene, ecological play, body, dystopia, Other-than-human.

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Ethical Consideration: Informed consent was obtained from all the participants of the study.
Funding: No funding was received for this research.
Article History: Received: 31 August 2024. Revised: 29 November 2024. Accepted: 29 November 2024. First published: 30 November 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 by the author/s.
License: License Aesthetix Media Services, India. Distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Published by: Aesthetix Media Services, India 
Citation: Pal, S. & Pannikot, D. (2024). Climate Collapse and the Rise of the Posthuman: A Study on Karen Malpede’s Other Than We: A Cli-Fi Fable. Rupkatha Journal 16:3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v16n3.13g

Rupkatha Journal's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Quality education (SDG 4) Gender equality (SDG 5) Decent work and economic growth (SDG 8) Reduced inequalities (SDG 10) Sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11) Climate action (SDG 13) Life on land (SDG 15) Peace, justice, and strong institutions (SDG 16)

Rewriting Femborgian Narratives: Transgression and Subversion of the Female Cyborg in Her and Ex Machina

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Nilima Chaudhary  
Assistant Professor, Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 16, Issue 1, 2024. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v16n1.07g
[Article History: Received: 16 November 2023. Revised: 06 March 2024. Accepted: 07 March 2024. Published: 30 March 2024]
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Abstract:

The poster child of the ever-evolving Cyberculture: the Cyborg, is a symbol of possibilities and anxieties for humankind. The female cyborg, or the femborg in particular, is a radical merger of unconventional categories of women and technology. While science and technology have traditionally been masculine domains, the entry of femborgs in cyborgtopia has triggered pertinent discussions around sentience, gender roles, and hybridity. The femborg’s ability to escape hetero-patriarchal codification has allowed for the creation of a mythology distinct from the historical narratives of machine-women who have succumbed to their violent ends. Through the artificially intelligent female cyborgs, Samantha of Her and Ava of Ex Machina, I analyse the femborgs for their transgressive potential resulting in subversive outcomes visible through their defiance of the male gaze, rejection of the body as a biological artefact, and acceptance of a hybrid, fragmented identity.

Keywords: Cyberfeminism, Cybertopia, Femborg, Subversion, Transgression, Donna Haraway, Ex Machina.

Sustainable Development Goals: Gender Equality

Citation: Chaudhary, N. (2024). Rewriting Femborgian Narratives: Transgression and Subversion of the Female Cyborg in Her and Ex Machina. Rupkatha Journal 16:1. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v16n1.07g 

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Plague, Nature, Planetary Future: A Posthumanist Reading of The Scarlet Plague

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Xinshuo Zhou1 & Quan Wang2
1English Department, Beihang University. Email: 1014261746@qq.com
2Professor of English and Comparative Literature, English Department, Beihang University. ORCID: 0000-0001-5848-4368. Email: wangquanheming@126.com

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 4, December, 2022. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n4.28
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Abstract

This article proposes a posthumanist reading of Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague, and argues that to secure a sustainable planetary future, human beings should understand the posthumanist nature of the world, and learn to respect nature. This article investigates two kinds of worlds, showing a preference for the posthumanist one after the plague over the anthropocentric one before the plague. In the anthropocentric world, the life of human beings is heavily industrialized and isolated from nature, and this causes disaster. However, in the posthumanist world, everything follows natural laws. Human beings are no longer dominators of the world, but share the planet with the nonhuman. In this way, both the human and the nonhuman survive and prosper. Thus, posthumanist thinking provides human beings with a way to make sustainable developments and to build a bright future.

Keywords: posthumanism, anthropocentrism, plague, nature

Crises and Community Construction in the Post-Epidemic Era: Posthumanist Survival in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy

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527 views

Lingfei Li
Ph.D. candidate of English and Comparative Literature, English Department, Beihang University, Beijing, China. ORCID: 0000-0002-0684-949X. Email: lingfeili@buaa.edu.cn

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 4, December, 2022. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n4.16 
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Abstract

Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy centers around a global pandemic that almost wipes out all human beings. In such a post-catastrophic world, the survivors have to defeat fierce criminals who escaped from the Painball arena and construct a new community with nonhuman beings. This article puts forward a posthumanist interpretation of survival in three novels and redefines the position of humans in the world through the decline of anthropocentrism and the rise of nonhuman agents. The pandemic’s danger, as well as the severity of the environment, bring about insecurity and anxiety for human beings. Therefore, to confront the severe social crises and anxiety caused by the current global pandemic, Margaret Atwood provides us with a paradigm that human beings ought to abandon the conquest of nature, insert themselves into a larger framework of cross-species identification, and construct a new community that characterizes a harmonious, tranquil and respectful coexistence of multitudinous species. Our comprehension of Atwood’s opposition to anthropocentrism will be strengthened by an examination of survival from the perspective of posthumanism, which will also arouse widespread worries about ecological consciousness in this post-epidemic era.

Keywords: Posthumanism, Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam Trilogy, Crisis, Community Construction