Imagining the Anthropocene Future: Body and Environment in Indigenous Speculative Fiction (40)

This study looks at alternative representations of the Anthropocene future by selected North American Indigenous female writers. Drawing on Indigenous scholarship and theories of New Materialism, the book addresses the possibilities for more complex conceptions of the materiality of human bodies and the more-than-human world. This is the first study to examine the intersections of Indigenous scholarship, theories of New Materialism and Native American fiction regarding the Anthropocene future. The book discusses selected speculative fiction novels by North American Indigenous female writers such as Zainab Amadahy, Rebecca Roanhorse, Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, Cherie Dimaline and Louise Erdrich. They offer a distinctive contribution to the emerging trend in Native American literature called Indigenous futurisms. The writers challenge established paradigms of science fiction genre by presenting alternative worlds where Indigenous people are heroes and Native knowledge means power. The book discusses how academic theory and selected Indigenous speculative fiction address the possibilities for more complex conceptions of the materiality of human bodies and the more-than-human world.