“Their Spidery Self”: On Webs of Subject-Object Empathy in Bernardine Evaristo’s Fiction

Abstract

Drawing on the theoretical premises of Anthropocene feminism, new materialist feminism and empathy studies, this paper represents an attempt to explore the mutually constitutive relations conjured in Bernardine Evaristo’s fiction between subjects and the object worlds they inhabit. Focusing on Lara (1997) and Girl, Woman, Other (2019) as examples of “fusion fiction,” the paper explores the ways in which a composite sense of agency is articulated between the human and the nonhuman, shaping what feminist thinkers from Rosi Braidotti to Jane Bennett envision as our posthuman horizons.