{"product_id":"universes-without-us-posthuman-cosmologies-in-american-literature-paperback-softback-9780816680610","title":"Universes Without Us; Posthuman Cosmologies in American Literature (Paperback \/ softback) 9780816680610","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eUniverses Without Us\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003ePosthuman Cosmologies in American Literature\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eMatthew A. Taylor (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780816680610\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 13 December 2013\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e264 pages, 4\u003cbr\u003e21.6 x 14 x 3.8 cm, 0.32 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eUniverses without Us \u003c\/i\u003eprovides incisive and illuminating readings of a wide range of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American literature. This book helps us to reconceive American literature through its compelling connections and intersections and to rethink the place of the human in American literature through its reconstruction of both pessimistic visions of a universe without us in Poe and Adams and potentially more livable posthuman existences through African-American literature.\" -Paul Gilmore, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Genuine Article: Race, Mass Culture, and American Literary Manhood\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDuring the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a wide variety of American writers proposed the existence of energies connecting human beings to cosmic processes. From varying points of view-scientific, philosophical, religious, and literary-they suggested that such energies would eventually result in the perfection of individual and collective bodies, assuming that assimilation into larger networks of being meant the expansion of humanity’s powers and potentialities-a belief that continues to inform much posthumanist theory today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eUniverses without Us\u003c\/em\u003e explores a lesser-known countertradition in American literature. As Matthew A. Taylor’s incisive readings reveal, the heterodox cosmologies of Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Adams, Charles Chesnutt, and Zora Neale Hurston reject the anthropocentric fantasy that sees the universe as a kind of reservoir of self-realization. For these authors, the world can be made neither “other” nor “mirror.” Instead, humans are enmeshed with “alien” processes that are both constitutive and destructive of “us.” By envisioning universes no longer our own, these cosmologies picture a form of interconnectedness that denies any human ability to master it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eUniverses without Us\u003c\/em\u003e demonstrates how the questions, possibilities, and dangers raised by the posthuman appeared nearly two centuries ago. Taylor finds in these works an untimely engagement with posthumanism, particularly in their imagining of universes in which humans are only one category of heterogeneous thing in a vast array of species, objects, and forces. He shows how posthumanist theory can illuminate American literary texts and how those texts might, in turn, prompt a reassessment of posthumanist theory. By understanding the posthuman as a materialist cosmology rather than a technological innovation, Taylor extends the range of thinkers who can be included in contemporary conversations about the posthuman.\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eContents\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIntroduction: Immortal Post-Mortems\u003cb\u003e1. Edgar Allan Poe’s Meta\/Physics\u003cb\u003e2. Henry Adams’s Half-Life: The Science of Autobiography\u003cb\u003e3. “By an Act of Self-Creation”: On Becoming Human in America\u003cb\u003e4. Hoodoo You Think You Are?: Self-Conjuration in Chesnutt’s \u003cem\u003eThe Conjure Woman\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e5. “It Might Be the Death of You”: Hurston’s Voodoo Ethnography\u003cb\u003eCoda: “The Cosmo-Political Party”\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNotes\u003cb\u003eIndex\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Univ Of Minnesota Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52570079953176,"sku":"9780816680610","price":20.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/universes-without-us-posthuman-cosmologies-in-american-literature-paperback-softback-9780816680610","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}