This chapter examines the potential embedded in feminist New Materialism for transforming established methods, conceptualizations, and attitudes within feminist literary criticism. It sketches a chronological outline of feminist theory and feminist literary criticism in order to situate feminist New Materialism as the latest cross-disciplinary transfer in an ongoing history of dialogues and appropriations from (1) second wave feminism, (2) French feminist theory and (3) queer theory. Drawing on ideas from Mayra Rivera, Donna Haraway, Karen Barad and others, the chapter argues that the lines of thought promoted by these figures are best adopted to literary criticism by engaging literature as an affective and imaginative site for witnessing what it feels like to live as a specific carnal configuration, subjected not only to the powers of discourse, but also to the recalcitrant materiality of the flesh, thereby revitalizing the emphasis on affect and experience also characteristic of the gynocritical approaches of the 1970s.
Throughout the last decade, calls for a return to materiality have reverberated within the humanities and social sciences. Few, however, have noticed that this return has also entailed a return to fiction, as the new theoretical writings on matter regularly include elements of storytelling, fabulation or other genres of invention. This article asks why this alliance between new materialism and fiction has come about: Why do scholars united by a common interest in ‘getting real’ consistently utilize a type of discourse defined precisely by not committing itself to reality? Examining works by Jane Bennett, Dominic Pettman, Stacy Alaimo, Astrida Neimanis, Donna Haraway, and Rebekah Sheldon, the article explores this question by tracing three modes of fictionality in new materialism distinguished by inventing non/human entanglements, scientific knowledge, and future societies respectively. Ultimately, the article argues that fictionality is a particularly attractive tool for attempts to transcend anthropocentric regimes of truth.
Ph.d.-stipendiat i nordisk språk og litteratur ved Aarhus Universitet.Har i samarbeid med Martin Gregersen tidligere utgitt monografiene Den materielle drejning. Natur, teknologi og krop i (nyere) dansk litteratur (2016), Eske K. Mathiesen (2015) og Det åbne redskabsskur. Hovedstrømninger i det nye årtusindes danske forfatterskolelitteratur (2013). Er for øyeblikket i ferd med å ferdigstille en ph.d.-avhandling om affekt, materialitet og postkritisk lesning med utgangspunkt i dansk samtidslitteratur.
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