Ecological Immunity and Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312
Mots-clés :
Kim Stanley Robinson, Science Fiction, Ecocriticism, Anthropocene, Ecological ImmunityRésumé
In this paper, I will propose the notion of “ecological immunity” as a useful conceptual tool for thinking about the Anthropocene. The term refers to a basic condition of all life: in order to flourish, an organism must insulate itself from its environment and maintain a stable interior space which can support the organism’s vital functions, immunizing it against the dangerous flux of its ecological environment. The history of the human species can be written as a process by which this internal environment is progressively explicated and exteriorized. The Anthropocene marks the historical moment when these strategies for immunization reach an absolute limit: as the biosphere is itself revealed to be a finite interior, the outside disappears. It is no longer sufficient to immunize the human collective against the ecological environment; instead, the challenge becomes the maintenance of the biosphere as a whole, now understood as the last immunitary container. Kim Stanley Robinson’s science fiction novel 2312, I argue, can be read as an extended allegory of the problem of ecological immunity and a perceptive exploration of its biopolitical implications.Téléchargements
Publié-e
2018-01-19
Comment citer
Bergthaller, H. (2018). Ecological Immunity and Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312. Journal of Ecocriticism, 8(1), 1–11. Consulté à l’adresse https://ojs.unbc.ca/index.php/joe/article/view/1627
Numéro
Rubrique
Keynote Papers