<i>Under the Skin</i>: Science Fiction as Posthuman Cultural Ecology

Rita Monticelli

doi:10.13125/2039-6597/3812

Rita Monticelli Università di Bologna

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/3812

Keywords: Science Fiction, Ecocriticism, Re-mediation, Under the Skin, Posthuman, Gender,

Abstract

Considering science fiction under the perspective of cultural ecology and as a ‘special case’ of re-mediation, Under the Skin, a novel by Michel Faber (2000) and the homonymous movie directed by Jonathan Glazer (2013) can be considered as ‘imaginative counter discourses’ exploring the posthuman subject. Science fiction, by offering multiple interpretative (im)possibilities of the real transcending the necessity of mimetic transparency, is an exploration of the possible laterals of experience. Both the novel and the movie, in interdependent ways, face in imaginative forms complex interspecies relations, gender violence, the separation between nature and technology, the exploitation of living beings in the consumerist world. ‘Under the skin’ indicates the communal humanity offended and claims the recognition of the interdependence between the self and the other, within the ecosystem and the media that ‘mediate’ and communicate them.

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Author Biography

Rita Monticelli, Università di Bologna

Rita Monticelli teaches English literature, gender studies, theories and history of culture at the University of Bologna. Her research interests include utopia, dystopia and science fiction in literature and visual culture, memory and trauma studies, the global novel, postcolonial theories and criticism, orientalism, and travel literature. Among her publications: The Politics of The Body in Women’s Literature (2012), Topografie delle culture (2011, co-edited with R. Vecchi), and the special issue of de genere “Small Island? Transnational Solidarity in Contemporary Literature and Arts” (2017, co-edited with L. Mari). She is member of international European research networks centred on cultures of equality. She coordinates the international M.A GEMMA (Women’s and Gender Studies) for the University of Bologna. She directs the Research Centre for Utopian Studies.

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Under the Skin: Science Fiction as Posthuman Cultural Ecology

Abstract

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Author Biography

References