Mourning the human? Posthuman death and ontological vulnerability in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach trilogy.

Ferrández-Sanmiguel, María

Publication:
Mourning the human? Posthuman death and ontological vulnerability in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach trilogy.

dc.contributor.author	Ferrández-Sanmiguel, María
dc.date.accessioned	2025-04-08T12:22:39Z
dc.date.available	2025-04-08T12:22:39Z
dc.date.issued	2024
dc.description.abstract	Abstract: This article reads Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach trilogy from the perspectives of critical posthumanism and trauma theory, paying particular attention to how the two discourses perceive the relationship between self and other, the vulnerability of the human and the expectation of death. The discussion is articulated against the background of the trilogy’s explicit concern with the reconfiguration of the human and with the Anthropocene. This is carried out through an exploration of classical and recent definitions of trauma after its encounter with environmental degradation and under the threat of human extinction. As it is contended, the trilogy invites us to imagine an end to humanity that is not also the end of life on the planet. While this might be read in the key of horror or induce feelings of anxiety or mourning, it compels us to confront the ethical implications of our embeddedness to the natural world and our shared vulnerability. The article ultimately argues in favor of the power of the imagination to spark change.	en
dc.format	application/pdf	es
dc.format.extent	22	es
dc.identifier.citation	Ferrández-Sanmiguel, María. “Mourning the Human? Posthuman Death and Ontological Vulnerability in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach Trilogy”. International Journal of English Studies, vol. 24, no. 2, Dec. 2024, pp. 195-16, doi:10.6018/ijes.582731.	es
dc.identifier.doi	https://doi.org/10.6018/ijes.582731
dc.identifier.issn	1989-6131 (Internet)
dc.identifier.issn	1578-7044
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10201/153122
dc.language	eng	es
dc.publisher	Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones.	es
dc.relation	The writing of this article was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under grant PID2022-137627NB-I00, and the Aragonese Regional Government (DGA) under grant H03_23R.	en
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess	es
dc.rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional	*
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/	*
dc.subject	Vulnerability	en
dc.subject	Posthuman Death	en
dc.subject	The Anthropocene	en
dc.subject	Trauma	en
dc.subject	TheSouthern Reach Trilogy	en
dc.subject.other	CDU::8- Lingüística y literatura	es
dc.title	Mourning the human? Posthuman death and ontological vulnerability in Jeff VanderMeer’s The Southern Reach trilogy.	en
dc.type	info:eu-repo/semantics/article	es
dspace.entity.type	Publication	es