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Chapter 2 - The Domestic Near Future 2

Bodies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2023

David Sergeant
Affiliation:
University of Plymouth
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Summary

The figure of the child has frequently been seen as central to discourses about the future; this chapter argues that its importance is trumped by the sensorially rich individual body. In Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins (2015), the child introduces a temporality of change and is associated with collectives that can only appear as a threat. In The Rapture (2009) by Liz Jensen, climate events intensify embodiment, while the desolation of apocalypse finds its true aetiology in the compound spectre of parenthood and the public realm. Her (2014, dir. Spike Jonze) is oblivious to climate change but shaped by a valorisation of the human body ensconced in domestic comfort, as it is threatened by the spectre of the mass. In all three fictions, the turn to the body is the denial of a fundamental equality with an Other both within and without the state. The chapter closes by showing how John Lanchester’s The Wall (2019) passes from a nationalist dystopia to the germ of a utopian collective in which the legacies of colonialism are finally overcome, to an isolation buoyed by material comfort, in a manner that updates Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe for the Anthropocene.

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Chapter
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The Near Future in Twenty-First-Century Fiction
Climate, Retreat and Revolution
, pp. 41 - 61
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • The Domestic Near Future 2
  • David Sergeant, University of Plymouth
  • Book: The Near Future in Twenty-First-Century Fiction
  • Online publication: 07 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009279901.003
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  • The Domestic Near Future 2
  • David Sergeant, University of Plymouth
  • Book: The Near Future in Twenty-First-Century Fiction
  • Online publication: 07 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009279901.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Domestic Near Future 2
  • David Sergeant, University of Plymouth
  • Book: The Near Future in Twenty-First-Century Fiction
  • Online publication: 07 August 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009279901.003
Available formats
×