Doing Science Otherwise: Material Performativity and Posthuman Spacetimematterings in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Series

Ferrández-SanMiguel, María (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Resumen: Drawing on the work by Rosi Braidotti, Karen Barad and Donna Haraway, this article reads VanderMeer’s Southern Reach series from a posthumanist, neomaterialist perspective as a form of postdisciplinary, posthuman inquiry. As I will argue, the series questions mainstream scientific knowledge, the positivism of science and the belief on the unbridgeable separation of the human from everything else. This interrogation is tightly linked in the series to the dismantling of the subject/object, meaning/matter and human/nonhuman dualisms, which is achieved through an emphasis on the performativity and creativity of matter. The series also problematizes time as a linear phenomenon, putting forward a view of time as contingent, emergent and in constant flux. This reading of the series offers a vision of postdisciplinary scholarship in which literary texts have the capacity to interpret, critique and enact scientific paradigms, ultimately fostering an ethics of responsibility for our posthuman times.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1515/ang-2026-0009

Año: 2026

Publicado en: Anglia 144, 1 (2026), 163-185
ISSN: 0340-5222

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/H03-23R
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/PID2022-137627NB-I00

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Área Filología Inglesa (Dpto. Filolog.Inglesa y Alema.)