Open AccessOf extreme monsters and extraordinary mutations
Author(s) -
Indrajit Patra
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
linguistics and culture review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2690-103X
DOI - 10.21744/lingcure.v5ns2.1644
Subject(s) - posthuman , transgressive , anthropocentrism , power (physics) , posthumanism , transformative learning , aesthetics , sociology , epistemology , art , philosophy , environmental ethics , biology , sedimentary depositional environment , paleontology , pedagogy , physics , structural basin , quantum mechanics
The present article seeks to analyse Neal Asher’s novel Jack Four (2021) to show how elements of posthuman monstrosity and extreme biological horror can combine to produce a unique kind of transgressive and transformative effect that radically alters the very definition of human and blurs the boundaries between human and non-human. As part of its theoretical framework, the article seeks to employ Braidotti’s idea of ‘epistemophilic’, Braidotti’s ‘Zoe’-centred view of the posthuman dimension of post-anthropocentrism, and Betterton’s (2006) idea of the boundary-problematizing potential of the monstrous ‘Other’ among many others. The article strives to show how Asher’s portrayal of extreme forms of posthuman monsters not only harnesses the near-inexhaustible transgressive power of the essentially indefinable monstrous figure but also by combining with the gruesome portrayal of endless body horror, it seems to project the human body as a site of endless becomings, connectivities and proliferations.