LEADER 04717nam 2200697 450 001 9910787611503321 005 20230803033041.0 010 $a1-4529-4051-7 035 $a(CKB)2670000000529359 035 $a(EBL)1643684 035 $a(SSID)ssj0001133129 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11626627 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0001133129 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)11156869 035 $a(PQKB)11589709 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC1643684 035 $a(OCoLC)871781386 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse31472 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL1643684 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10843271 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL578966 035 $a(EXLCZ)992670000000529359 100 $a20130822h20132013 uy| 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur|n||||||||| 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 10$aUniverses without us $eposthuman cosmologies in American literature /$fMatthew A. Taylor 210 1$aMinneapolis :$cUniversity of Minnesota Press,$d[2013] 210 4$dİ2013 215 $a1 online resource (280 p.) 300 $aBased on the author's thesis (Ph. D.) -- The Johns Hopkins University, 2009. 311 $a0-8166-8061-2 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $aMachine generated contents note: -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Immortal Post-Mortems -- 1. Edgar Allan Poe's Meta/Physics -- 2. Henry Adams's Half-Life: The Science of Autobiography -- 3. "By an Act of Self-Creation": On Becoming Human in America -- 4. Hoodoo You Think You Are?: Self-Conjuration in Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman -- 5. "It Might Be the Death of You": Hurston's Voodoo Ethnography -- Coda: "The Cosmo-Political Party" -- Notes -- Index. 330 $a" During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a wide variety of American writers proposed the existence of energies connecting human beings to cosmic processes. From varying points of view--scientific, philosophical, religious, and literary--they suggested that such energies would eventually result in the perfection of individual and collective bodies, assuming that assimilation into larger networks of being meant the expansion of humanity's powers and potentialities--a belief that continues to inform much posthumanist theory today. Universes without Us explores a lesser-known countertradition in American literature. As Matthew A. Taylor's incisive readings reveal, the heterodox cosmologies of Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Adams, Charles Chesnutt, and Zora Neale Hurston reject the anthropocentric fantasy that sees the universe as a kind of reservoir of self-realization. For these authors, the world can be made neither "other" nor "mirror." Instead, humans are enmeshed with "alien" processes that are both constitutive and destructive of "us." By envisioning universes no longer our own, these cosmologies picture a form of interconnectedness that denies any human ability to master it. Universes without Us demonstrates how the questions, possibilities, and dangers raised by the posthuman appeared nearly two centuries ago. Taylor finds in these works an untimely engagement with posthumanism, particularly in their imagining of universes in which humans are only one category of heterogeneous thing in a vast array of species, objects, and forces. He shows how posthumanist theory can illuminate American literary texts and how those texts might, in turn, prompt a reassessment of posthumanist theory. By understanding the posthuman as a materialist cosmology rather than a technological innovation, Taylor extends the range of thinkers who can be included in contemporary conversations about the posthuman. "--$cProvided by publisher. 606 $aCosmology in literature 606 $aAmerican literature$y19th century$xHistory and criticism 606 $aAmerican literature$y20th century$xHistory and criticism 606 $aHumanity in literature 606 $aHuman beings in literature 606 $aSelf in literature 606 $aOrder (Philosophy) in literature 615 0$aCosmology in literature. 615 0$aAmerican literature$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aAmerican literature$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aHumanity in literature. 615 0$aHuman beings in literature. 615 0$aSelf in literature. 615 0$aOrder (Philosophy) in literature. 676 $a810.9/384 686 $aLIT004020$aPHI000000$aLIT006000$2bisacsh 700 $aTaylor$b Matthew A.$f1978-$01530906 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910787611503321 996 $aUniverses without us$93776283 997 $aUNINA