Imagining the Anthropocene Future

This study looks at alternative representations of the Anthropocene future by selected North American Indigenous female writers. Drawing on Indigenous scholarship and theories of New Materialism, the book addresses the possibilities for more complex conceptions of the materiality of human bodies and the more-than-human world.

This is the first study to examine the intersections of Indigenous scholarship, theories of New Materialism and Native American fiction regarding the Anthropocene future. The book discusses selected speculative fiction novels by North American Indigenous female writers such as Zainab Amadahy, Rebecca Roanhorse, Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, Cherie Dimaline and Louise Erdrich. They offer a distinctive contribution to the emerging trend in Native American literature called Indigenous futurisms. The writers challenge established paradigms of science fiction genre by presenting alternative worlds where Indigenous people are heroes and Native knowledge means power. The book discusses how academic theory and selected Indigenous speculative fiction address the possibilities for more complex conceptions of the materiality of human bodies and the more-than-human world.

Autorentext

Paula Wieczorek is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Studies at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszów, Poland. She specialises in contemporary Native American literature, ecocriticism and posthumanism.

Inhalt
Chapter 1. Dualistic thinking and its implications - Chapter 2. Attempts at overcoming mind- body dualisms - Chapter 3. "We Are the Land": Toward understanding the Native American worldview - Chapter 4. Bodies, class, technology and environmental injustice in Zainab Amadahy's speculative fiction - Chapter 5. Reimagining heroism: Sacred mountains, plants and Indigenous women in Rebecca Roanhorse's and Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel's speculative fiction - Chapter 6. Biopolitical futures: Indigenous bodies, Native American DNA and making kin in the Anthropocene