“The Machine Stops” is a science fiction short story by English author E.M. Forster, set in a world where humanity resides underground, relying on an omnipotent global machine to fulfil all its needs. The two main characters, Vashti and her son Kuno, represent two opposing worldviews, giving rise to questions regarding the survival of the collective as opposed to the freedom of the individual. The Machine has become essential in the preservation of this society, which later proves to be incredibly fragile: a society which has come to solely rely on the comforts provided by the Machine and has renounced the physicality of its inhabitants. Forster predicts humanity’s increasing reliance on technology, highlighting the dangers of this becoming the ultimate controlling force, a concern that is also relevant in modern society. The futurist, information-oriented world presented reveals what can happen when humanity disengages itself from its physical and emotional existence, becoming incapable of adapting to changing environments. Examining this world through the lens of the beehive metaphor, the objective is to explore the danger of complacency which leads to stagnation. By delving into how individuals can resist the tendency of the collective to numb their inquisitive human spirit, the necessity of adaptation is revealed. The story delivers a warning and a hopeful message about growth in new global realities, which may resonate with readers to this day.
This article analyzes intertextuality within the genre of romantasy, as well as what I call a romantasy chain reaction (the influence of one title on subsequent ones), initiated by Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses series. After exploring the theoretical aspects of intertextuality, the paper examines this phenomenon in practice on the example of the abovementioned series. The analysis discusses the responses of A Court of Thorns and Roses to the cultural world, but also the responses of other romantasy works (namely Rhapsodic, Quicksilver, Fourth Wing, and When the Moon Hatched, Crescent City, as well as A Song of the Forever Rains) to those books, henceforth creating the aforementioned intertextual chain reaction.
Literature in the socio-political context has been frequently adopted as a weapon against women. It has depicted them as “servants of history,” existing to please men and produce the next generations (Walsh 5). Sometimes, this war inflicted on women was tenacious with colonizers’ attempts to enslave the nations that they conquered. This correlation between sexism and colonialism was present in Ireland, where women were subjugated both to the rules of British colonizers and to Irish men desiring to confine them to their homes. One of the literary traditions contributing to the control of Irish women was the aisling tradition [the word aisling means a vision or a dream; it originated as a Gaelic literary genre connected with love and sovereignty]. The main focus of the aisling is the image of Ireland personified as an ideal woman who comes to Irish men in their dreams, urging them to fight for their country. In modern times, Irish feminists started to point out how the aisling tradition imprisoned women culturally and suppressed their sexuality. Consequentially, Irish women writers have been striving to reverse the profound impact that a variety of literary texts, including this tradition, exerted on the worldview of Irish people. This article will present the ways in which Medbh McGuckian reverses the aisling tradition to give women agency and voice, and juxtapose them with Seamus Heaney’s poetry (especially his two poems: “The Act of Union” and “Ocean’s Love to Ireland”). Furthermore, it will reflect on the transformation from the “male gaze” in Heaney’s poems to “female action” in McGuckian’s poems. The analysis will encompass two of her poems: “The Hollywood Bed” and “The Heiress,” in the framework of literary criticism from acclaimed feminist scholars such as Clair Wills, Alison Garden, and Aimée Walsh. It will also comment on the origins of the term male gaze to contextualize the discussion around it.
This article examines Yōko Tawada’s novel The Emissary as a response to the post-3/11 ecological and nuclear crisis in Japan. It explores how the novel reimagines the post-apocalypse landscape not as a dystopian warning but as a space for provisional and interrelational world-building. The analysis examines the novel’s narrative structure and thematic preoccupations within posthumanist and new materialist frameworks, revealing its rejection of apocalyptic temporality in favour of transcorporeal time and materiality. The study also examines water as a motif for challenging contemporary isolationist post-Fukushima discourses by contextualising the novel within an alternative planetary eco-ethics based on theories of Hydrofeminism. The article demonstrates how Tawada repurposes a genre “born out of crisis” into a speculative “playground” for reparative storytelling grounded in multispecies care and ecological negotiation.
A number of literary works, especially those from dystopian genre, such as George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) have been concerned with the notion of agency and its limitations, and have explored it in various settings. In 2022, the broad catalogue of dystopian media welcomed a new addition, the Apple TV+ series Severance. The show creates a setting familiar to the potential viewer by exploring the eerie corporate world of consumption-fueled capitalism, whose subjects chase after emotionlessness required for satisfying results in a profit-oriented workplace. The show explores the relationship between negative affects and late-stage capitalist society, modified by the use of a neurological chip designed to increase the productivity of an employee. The aim of this essay is to apply notions developed by, among others, Sara Ahmed and Eva Illouz, to explore the connection between the agency of a person, their emotional make-up, and an economic system enhanced by futuristic technological advancements.
This article applies a posthumanist framework to Stephen King’s Firestarter (1980), focusing on the systems of surveillance, the ethics of experimentation on humans and the cultural dehumanisation of what is considered unknown. Charlie McGee, a child born with pyrokinetic abilities, resulting from a government experiment conducted on both of her parents, embodies concerns central to posthumanist theory as outlined by N. Katherine Hayles and Cary Wolfe. Hayles argues that posthumanism “privileges informational pattern over material instantiation” and redefines the human as “an amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous components” embedded in systemic networks. Her ideas fit Charlie, whose identity is deeply shaped by such a network, one of surveillance, experimentation, and exploitation. Meanwhile, Cary Wolfe’s critique of liberal humanism reveals how traditional definitions of the human exclude those who differ from normative standards. As he writes, posthumanism “forces us to rethink our taken-for-granted modes of human experience, including the normal perceptual modes and affective states of Homo sapiens itself.” Charlie is labelled a “monster” or “witch,” revealing the cultural forces behind her exclusion. As she gains agency over her powers, she emerges as a figure of posthuman resistance, reclaiming autonomy from the system that sought to control her.
In her text “Mothers, Monsters and Machines” (1997), R. Braidotti recognizes the unifying factor that connects the monstrous feminine with a machine. She compares the female body to a child-producing machine, which she sees as an incubator for ‘the future of humanity.’ Taking into consideration today’s technological advancement and science fiction speculations, the idea of artificial motherhood is no longer an unrealistic scenario. Also, Donna Haraway , while coining the concept of the cyborg in her “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985), considers the reproductive possibilities of female cyborgs. As she notices, the cyborgian female, created to surpass human expectations, rebels against the known rules and standards. Yet, the present text argues that a cyborg may still succumb to the idealized version/imposed standards of patriarchal views regarding motherhood. The paper aims to analyse the character of Lamia, a female-gendered cyborg in the TV series Raised by Wolves (2020-2022), which showcases the portrayal of an influential mother figure. Despite the stereotypical gender patterns, and religious and racial prejudices, she experiences all the stages of motherhood, while still being a cyborg and a “Necromancer”. However, she also become the victim of the normative/patriarchal thought/control over reproductive possibilities in virtual space.
Virginia Woolf's personal life has sparked an incredible amount of controversy throughout the years. Numerous speculations have been developed about her personal struggle with mental illness and the effect it had on her writing. This article argues that in Woolf’s case, writing took the form of “scriptotherapy”, which is regarded as an effective means of dealing with trauma. From another angle, the article aims to shed more light on yet another manifestation of Woolf’s genius: an intuitive but accurate description of a war veteran’s torment and subsequent suicide, as a consequence of dealing with untreated Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. When examining Septimus’ trauma, we identify similarities between his story and Woolf’s personal experience with the male-dominated psychiatric elite of her times (documented by her biographers). The study also investigates Virginia Woolf’s feminist perspective on trauma, through analysing societal norms’ profound influence on human suffering.
American literature is undeniably a powerful force in the literary world. A towering giant, it stands above others, exerting a significant influence on global literary cultures. Students from different nationalities and cultures therefore find themselves having to contend with the fact that they have to focus heavily on American literary works, typically at the expense of their own literary traditions and the unique experiences from their respective cultures. All societies should receive their just due to ensure a more well-rounded understanding of the world. Without this representation, there is a very real danger that perspectives become skewed towards the American experience at the expense of other cultures which are very rich, colorful, and replete with enlightenment and lessons that can often be missing from American literature. The United States does not represent the whole world and literary works need to reflect this reality. Having cultural diversity is critical in literature to ensure proper representation. The following discussion thus seeks to examine the feelings of African learners who read American texts such as Manifest Destiny by Anders Stephanson and Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. The article tries to answer the question whether the students may feel a connection to certain stories but feel alienated from others, depending on the relatability of the texts to their African experience.
This paper aims to analyse the metaphorical conceptualizations that highlight the dichotomy between the countries and people in the service of political agendas. The study introduces the brief account of Lakoff’s and Sandikcioglu’s remarks on the use of figurative language in a political discourse. This is followed by a systematic analysis of the metaphorical conceptualizations that emphasize the Us/Them asymmetry in the speeches of American presidents regarding World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War.
Otherness is the Gothic motif that has become a metaphor for all kinds of oppression and discrimination—its signification went from showing a threat and emphasising the dangerousness of one that is beyond society to pondering the feelings and experiences of the outcast. As such, it became the important mode of describing the internal struggles of queer people, their self-doubt, and the fear of the reaction they might receive should they ever come out. This paper undertakes an analysis of Truman Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) and Randall Kenan’s A Visitation of Spirits (1989)—two Southern Gothic novels, both of which are describing the struggles of queer characters, adolescent boys who have been cast as the other by their environment. The article examines how both novels portray otherness and the communities’ reactions to this difference. Truman Capote in Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948) connects the struggle of finding one’s identity to finding one’s reflection in others. He uses the Gothic atmosphere to indicate the protagonist’s fear of abandonment and to portray a difficult journey of discovering one’s identity and growing into it—in his depiction, otherness is something inherent that is meant to be discovered and embraced. The author creates a rather optimistic tale of the other finding his identity, his place and people in the confusing world. His others do not experience any guilt or shame over their identities—instead, they accept them. In contrast, A Visitation of Spirits (1989) by Randall Kenan focuses on the idea that otherness is ascribed, and not inherent. The author describes a hermetic, exclusionist community that mercilessly punishes any deviation from the heteronormative norm. He shows how the other is created, and the internal costs of the threat of exclusion.
The article discusses the human—nonhuman relationship in The Stone Gods (2007) by Jeanette Winterson. The goal of the article is to show how the novel questions the boundary between the human and the nonhuman—Billie and a Robo sapiens—Spike. The article applies transhumanist and posthumanist theory while acknowledging the elements distinguishing both from each other. Its main argument is that genetic augmentation in the form of Genetic Fixing and widespread technologization of life can be viewed as a representation of the transhumanist ideology, while the entanglement between the characters unravels the posthumanist message of the novel, which negotiates the dichotomy between human and nonhuman.
Engaging with social change and progress within public discourse often encounters resistance due to entrenched beliefs and ideological divides. Literature, particularly science fiction, provides a unique platform for contemplating societal transformation through the exploration of imaginary worlds and scenarios detached from the contemporary status quo. This article is centred around the philosophical potential of science fiction and the role of technology as a powerful metaphor for change and difference, focusing on Martha Wells’ series The Murderbot Diaries. The article delves into the role of Murderbot, a cyborg embodying an outsider perspective on human behaviour, as a metaphorical device for a deep questioning of the status quo. The article claims that through a queer reading, Murderbot’s familiarity with human social constructs, biases, and norms, juxtaposed with its status as an “outsider,” makes it a potent tool for societal critique. By analysing the portrayal of Murderbot’s queerness through the lens of queer theory and gender studies, this study examines its profound implications for understanding social norms. Additionally, the article explores how the portrayal of queer identity in The Murderbot Diaries strengthens the character's individuality and agency, thereby humanising it and questioning the very concept of humanity. The article aims to show that Murderbot’s queerness not only challenges conventional notions of binary gender and heteronormativity but also offers a critical perspective on the social processes at the source of these concepts. Furthermore, it posits queerness as an empowering alternative to conforming to the status quo. Through this analysis, the article contributes to a nuanced understanding of social change and identity within the context of speculative fiction, inviting a reconsideration of established paradigms and embracing diversity.
The paper examines the perception of the American Dream in American society during the Second World War as presented in Charles Bukowki’s Factotum (1975). The article defines the notion of the American Dream in the 1940s and discusses it as a divisive force in the American society. The research identifies different perspectives on the Dream held by members of various social classes, with particular emphasis on the views presented by the main protagonist, Henry Chinaski. The Dream, which was a once unifying factor, seems to have been a source of deepening fissures in the picture of a coherent American population. Factotum presents an idiosyncratic story of negotiating the meaning of the American Dream in the mind of a troubled individual. Influenced by the pervasive belief in the Dream in the 1940s US, he tries to reconcile his inner beliefs with the surrounding reality, in an attempt to find his place in the community. This seems to be an impossible quest: the American Dream is presented to be an oppressive factor that eventually forces him to resign himself to the demi world of American outcasts.
Multitudes of apocalyptic visions are based on events of great magnitude, such as a global nuclear war, a catastrophic natural disaster or an invasion from outer space. It is easy to imagine the immediate effects of these calamities and all the loss of life, the destroyed infrastructure and the ravaged land. However, there is a more insidious vision of the apocalypse that does not immediately present itself as a spectacle of death and destruction. One of the less frequently used ideas for the end of the world is a disaster that destroys technology. A precise strike of a solar flare or a powerful electromagnetic pulse could lead to the end of modern civilization as we know it. One example of such a catastrophe is presented in Don DeLillo’s The Silence. In the novel, without any warning, all technological devices stop working. The characters in the story struggle with their new situation. While it does not describe a massive panic or more spectacular signs of the end of the world, the text draws attention to a different issue. Above all, Don DeLillo shows how the technology became an inseparable part of not only our lives, but also of our very being. The lack of technological presence directly interferes with the characters thinking and speech. This problematic situation shows that the mysterious event led to something more than lack of connection with the outside world, damaged planes and broken lights. As much as the disaster leads to the ruin of modern civilization, it also shows how the human mind cannot operate properly without stimuli provided by the technology. The novel provides a vision or a warning for the state of the society, which without the access to technology would crumble on the mental level.
Artificial intelligence is already developed enough to perform mechanical and computerised tasks, but the ability to convey emotions and recreate human consciousness is currently being studied. This article will primarily deal with AI-generated literature, focusing mainly on short text extracts and poetry. The selected research method in this article is qualitative research. A linguistic analysis of individual texts was carried out, as well as a comparison of the texts themselves. An experiment was conducted in which a group of participants decided whether the presented text was written by a human or artificial intelligence. In addition, I examined the positions in the discussion whether AI poetry can be considered authentic.
The aim of the article is to discuss the portrayal of masculinities in Scenes from a Marriage (2021) in which the departure from the archetype of a “manly” man is presented and inclusive masculinity is introduced. The article explores notions of patriarchal, that is, hegemonic masculinity, traditional manhood, and inclusive masculinity. Furthermore, it discusses the concept of gender and the manner in which masculinity and femininity are socially constructed as binary oppositions. Moreover, the article points to the significance of changing models of masculinity in creating a society based on equality. It contains a practical analysis of the figure of Jonathan from Scenes from a Marriage. It demonstrates the high value of inclusive masculinity, which should be more widely represented in media.
This article studies The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh as an exemplary text that cuts through the simplistic ideas of human-nonhuman relations. Adapting Bhrigupati Singh’s idea of agonistic intimacy, to a slightly different context, this article endeavours to investigate the cohabitation of ostensibly adversarial neighbours (humans and nohuman animals). The article seeks to elucidate the ways in which mythic and ritualistic oral traditions, related to the guardian spirit Bonbibi, function as mediators, fostering amity in these potentially contentious human animal relations. Ghosh points out the fallacy of ignoring the indigenous ecologies and highlights the absurdity of applying straight jacketed anthropocentric models of care in such contexts. Focusing on the multispecies ethos of the Sundarbans the novel embraces the porous and rhizomatic human-nonhuman kinship. This form of intimacy invokes existence of cohabitation and conflict and Ghosh’s novel is a case in point for exploration and understanding of such encounters.
The essay interprets the poem “Poem” by Langston Hughes drawing both from biographical material about the author (e.g., the biopic Looking for Langston) and from political writing about queer friendship and solidarity, notably Sara Ahmed, José Esteban Muñoz, and Judith Butler. Instead of engaging in a close reading that tries to do justice to the queerness of the “historical” Langston Hughes, the text tries to identify the power of the poem in providing suggestions of how marginalized individuals can challenge societal norms and open spaces for alternative modes of being. Referring to Michel Foucault’s ideas of gay friendship as a disruptive mode of resistance to existing structures of power, the essay develops a more nuanced idea of how Hughes’s poetry subscribes to a poiesis of susceptibility. In other words, the article argues that the poem allows for a shift away from the dominant mode of subject-formation within oppressive norms by presenting utopian speech and new modes of interrelation, namely Black, male, and queer friendship. Hence, it rethinks how those to whom the future does not belong can try to reclaim it by creating spheres where potentiality, difference, and otherness can exist and individuals can make themselves intelligible who were previously unrecognizable. Poetry functions in this process as tool that builds and reconfigures the frames of susceptibility allowing for friendships and softness that found no place before or outside of those.
In the last thirty years, Romanticism has been approached from various nuanced lenses, and ecocriticism is one such perspective. The recent scholarship allowed a redemptive arc for the early 19th-century poetry, which was earlier disregarded because of its promises of aestheticism and overtly exaggerated fantasies. Most criticism of Romantic poetry focused on its anthropomorphic imagery. As a result, it delineated the peripheral non-human entities as mere embellishments or expressions. Ecocritical studies of the early nineteen nineties, while acknowledging the non-human entities in the poesies of the Romantics, inevitably fell short in accounting for the dualities and concerns of both the agents by effectively erasing the human component from their discourses. The earlier Romantic ecological studies reminisce and idealize the past glories of nature without accounting for the desolating present and their altruistic view in disparaging the human agency. This paper will attempt to place the above conflicting ideas by presenting the “Ode to the West Wind” in a ‘Symbiocene,’ a term coined by Glenn A. Albrecht to denote a new era countering the damaging Anthropocene. Additionally, it brings together the two seemingly divergent scales of investigation of human and non-human agencies in ecocritical studies. The paper will also discuss Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous ode in the modern-day context of the deteriorating earth.
