The Oceanic Weird, Wet Ontologies and Hydro-Criticism in China Miéville’s The Scar

Mathieson, Jolene

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-28116-8_8

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…So, what exactly do we mean by 'the Weird'? The weird has been described as an affect (Miéville, 2011a); an inflection, a tone or mood (Luckhurst, 2017); a mode (Hollinger, 2014); a montage (Fisher, 2016); and an atmosphere (Mathieson, 2019) of discord and discomfort (Pursall, 2021). Morton (2016) traces the etymological roots of 'weird' to the Old Norse word, 'urth,' meaning twisted, in a loop.…”

Section: China Miéville Perdido Street Stationmentioning

confidence: 99%

For a new weird geography

Turnbull

Platt

Searle

2022

Progress in Human Geography

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The contemporary ecological condition is one of ‘global weirding’, a term coined to describe both anthropogenically changed worlds and the experience of dwelling within them. In this paper, we foreground New Weird fiction as a progressive literary style, distinct from its problematic roots, with conceptual import to human geography. Through attention to the New Weird’s treatment of difference, dis/orientation and ecological relation, these texts provoke geographers to foster a speculative ethics suited to a weirding world. In suggesting this ethical approach, this paper contributes to emerging debates in geography concerning ambivalence, disorientation and affirmation/negation.

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Section: China Miéville Perdido Street Stationmentioning

confidence: 99%

For a new weird geography

Turnbull

Platt

Searle

2022

Progress in Human Geography

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“…This fear with challenges the colonial monstering of the ocean, which, as Jolene Mathieson notes, has wider implications: 'by alienating such natural environments and the species that live in them, as residents of a shared ecosystem, we are, in fact, monstering and alienating ourselves'. 26 In the Deep No One can Hear You Scream: From Deep-Sea Cables to Deep-Sea Mining This self-alienation can be seen in Kipling's poem 'The Deep-Sea Cables' (1896) in which the momentous development of globalisation is explored as telegraphic cables are laid underwater to facilitate transatlantic communication. The poem describes the deep-sea as an empty, silent and dreadful space over which human technology is taking control: 'Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Decolonising Deep-Sea Gothic: Perspectives from the Americas

Champion

2022

Gothic Studies

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This article argues that gothic tropes are central to depictions of the ocean across different genres and forms, but there is a colonial and decolonial trend in the use of horror in portrayal of the sea. This article identifies how gothic depictions of the deep-sea form part of a specific tradition of ecophobic representations of the deep in western narratives aiming to control and commodify. These depictions are profoundly marked by colonial legacies, as this paper shows by analysing briefly Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘The Deep-Sea Cables’ (1896) and William Eubank’s film Underwater (2020). The article then considers how gothic tropes persisting in post-colonial and decolonial cultural productions serve to identify, first, structural colonial violence still present today; and second, an anxiety about our ecosystem in a time of climate crisis in Rita Indiana’s novel La Mucama de Omicunlé (2015) and works emerging from the Caribbean and Latin America.

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Alien Oceans as Climate Salvation: Finding Hope in Kinship with the Deep Blue Unknown

Neste

2022

Literary Animal Studies and the Climate Crisis

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The Oceanic Weird, Wet Ontologies and Hydro-Criticism in China Miéville’s The Scar

Cited by 4 publications

References 20 publications

For a new weird geography

For a new weird geography

Decolonising Deep-Sea Gothic: Perspectives from the Americas

Alien Oceans as Climate Salvation: Finding Hope in Kinship with the Deep Blue Unknown

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