Narrative and posthumanism/posthumanist narratives

Fictional narratives have arguably contributed to establishing humanist assumptions in the West, with the genre of the “realist” novel taking on a particularly significant role in this process. However, narratives can also work towards a critique of humanism. The chapter first examines a number of “posthumanist narratives” in science fiction, a speculative (and anti-realist) genre that resonates strongly with posthumanism. A reading of Chris Ware’s comic book Building Stories complements this discussion by showing that posthumanist concerns may also emerge outside of science fiction, through Ware’s foregrounding of disability and nonhuman spaces. The chapter’s central claim is that narrative’s encounter with posthumanism goes well beyond plot and subject-matter, and that formal strategies – particularly nonlinearity and the use of nonhuman characters – are a crucial site of negotiation of human-nonhuman entanglement in narrative