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Narrating and Archiving Nature: Tom Committa's The Nature Book as a New Genre of the Anthropocene

Year: 2024
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: The intricate interplay between posthuman historiography, literary critique, and theAnthropocene context drives a quest for new historical and representational paradigms beyondhuman-centric perspectives. Amidst this complex quest, Tom Committa's recent posthumanistnovel, The Nature Book (2023), emerges as a significant touchstone. By introducing the novelconcept of a 'literary supercut (A Brief),' Committa not only pioneers a new narrative genre butalso crafts a fictional realm devoid of human presence. By meticulously curating naturaldescriptions from 300 canonical Anglophone novels, Committa challenges narrativeconventions, shifting the focus to nature descriptions and questioning the perception of humansas exclusive architects of historical agency. This creative endeavor results in a contemplativenarrative that navigates what I contend is the 'literary long durée,' functioning as acomprehensive literary chronicle that traces the evolving representation of nature across diverseliterary epochs. Simultaneously, it facilitates the observation of the unfolding Anthropocene,revealing its stratigraphic foundation and intricate discursive-affective dimensions. Thisalignment is further reinforced by Erica Fudge's Anthropocene historiography perspective,advocating for a reinterpretation of historical documents and crafting a 'holistic history'transcending human-non-human boundaries. I argue that Committa's novel prompts readers tocontemplate the intricate relationship between nature and storytelling, expanding beyondhuman history to encompass a broader natural history. As a result, the novel takes on thecharacter of an 'Anthropocene novel,' exploring the interplay of human agency and more-thanhuman nature while crystallizing as a 'concept art' or '(hyper)object of the literary (hi)story,'meticulously woven from centuries of authors' portrayals of animals, landforms, and weatherpatterns
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7132403153
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