This introductory chapter situates the book in current discussions in the fields of literature and science studies and twenty-first-century fiction. It introduces the notion of ‘connectivities,’ understood to capture actual states as well as possibilities for connection, and distinguishes it from, respectively, the concepts of ‘two cultures’ and ‘networks’ to allow fresh and unburdened views on representations of science in contemporary fiction. Setting out the organisation of this volume in two main sections, the chapter explains the governing ideas of ‘human connectivities’ and ‘temporal connectivities’ and locates these in contemporary criticism, including conceptualisations of returns to realism and ethics, unbroken interest in the past and the future, and renegotiations of the traditionally speculative views of science fiction and its relations to mainstream literature.
The interrelations between literary studies, and posthumanism deserve attention beyond the focus on the representation of posthuman identities on the story level. To explore these, this article looks at examples of interactive digital narratives (IDN): Bandersnatch (2018), a ‘choose-your-own-adventure’-type instalment of Netflix’s dystopian SF-anthology series Black Mirror, the short film The Angry River (2017), which employs gaze-detection technology to determine what viewers get to see, and the serious multi-platform videogame The Climate Trail (2019), specifically designed to move players ‘into action’. Straddling the border between ludology and narrative to varying degrees, all offer the chance of ‘do overs’ and the exploration of complex patterns and processes. They raise questions about the co-production of pre-scripted meanings, about authorial and reader agency, conceptions of control, closure, and narrative (un)reliability. Thus, this article argues, they challenge ideas about the potential of narratives in and beyond posthuman digital environments.
Completing his trilogy of adaptations of Shakespearean tragedies, Indian director Vishal Bhardwaj’s film Haider (2014) tackles Hamlet. A generic fusion of realist drama, Bollywood movie, and espionage thriller, the film intersects the Elizabethan source text’s revenge plot with intertextual references to journalist Basharat Peer’s contemporary war memoir Curfewed Nights (2011), detailing the realities in insurgency-torn Kashmir in the 1990s. Taking its cue from the film’s controversial reception, which runs the gamut from censorship, appraisals, and criticism that Indian film does not need the ‘crutch’ of Hamlet to claim attention, this article explores questions about border-crossing, violence, and reconciliation raised on the level of form and content. Haider presents an adaptation of not one but two source texts: one ‘global’ and one ‘local’. The result, this article argues, is astonishingly harmonious and the contested metaphors of adaptation theory and global Shakespeare studies, such as ‘appropriation’ or ‘indigenization’, apply less to it than that of a transcultural ‘contact zone’ (Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Transculturation, 2nd. ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2008) and of a ‘crossmapping’ (Bronfen, Elisabeth. Crossmappings. On Visual Culture. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2018). By placing greater emphasis on communality and having the ending turn from revenge to forgiveness, Haider interrogates the transcultural appeal of Hamlet, drawing attention to histories of violent conflict. It also reveals a revisionist agenda that captures both hidden political realities and a haunting refiguration of Shakespeare.
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