The Blazing World’e Posthümanist Bir Bakış

Öz

Margaret Cavendish'in 1666'da yayınlanan, ütopik bir dünyada, bilinmeyen bir zamanda geçen The Blazing World adlı düzyazı kurgusu, posthuman (insansonrası) bir ütopik dünyayı gözler önüne serer. Cavendish anlatısında bilim ve teknolojiden dine ve insan haklarına kadar çeşitli konular üzerine felsefi anlamda düşünür. Metin, bilim kurgu romanlarının yanı sıra ütopik ve distopik romanların öncüsü olarak kabul edilir. Roman yarı insan yarı hayvan sayısız canlıyla, bedensiz varlıklarla ve teknolojik üretimlerle doludur. Yazarın romandaki insan dışı yaratımları insana benzer niteliklere sahiptir ve bu da Aydınlanma'dan bu yana hâkim olan insanla ilgili temel varsayımlara meydan okur. İnsanın faillik, zekâ ve niyetlilik sahibi tek varlık olduğunu iddia eden bu varsayımları Cavendish'in romanında vücut bulan kurgusal yaratıklar çürütebilir. Ayrıca, bu varlıklar, barış ve uyum içinde yaşayan bir dünyayı şekillendirmek için failliklerini, zekalarını ve niyetlerini kullanırlar ve bu onları kitaptaki insanlardan daha üstün kılar. Bu makale, Aydınlanma'dan bu yana süregelen insanmerkezci tutumu sorgulamak için Margaret Cavendish'in bilimkurgu romanlarının atası sayılan metnini posthümanist bir bakış açısıyla analiz etmeyi amaçlamaktadır

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Margaret Cavendish
• The Blazing World
• Aydınlanma
• Humanizm
• Posthümanizm.

A Posthuman View of The Blazing World

Abstract

Set in an unknown time in a utopian world named The Blazing World, Margaret Cavendish’s prose fiction published in 1666 introduces a posthuman utopian world. Cavendish philosophizes on a variety of subjects from science and technology to religion and human rights in her narrative. The text is considered the predecessor of science fiction novels as well as utopian and dystopian novels. It is packed with numerous beings that are half human and half animal as well as immaterial spirits and pieces of technology. The nonhuman creations of the writer in the novel have human-like attributes, which challenges the basic assumptions of human that have prevailed since the Enlightenment. These assumptions of human claiming that humans are the only beings with agency, intelligence, and intentionality may be repudiated by Cavendish’s fictional creatures who have these features attributed to men. In addition, they use their agency, intelligence, and intentionality to shape a world that lives in peace and harmony, which makes them even more outstanding entities than humans in the book. This paper aims to analyze Margaret Cavendish’s proto-science fiction text in the light of posthumanism with a post-anthropocentric view to question the ongoing anthropocentric attitude since the Enlightenment.

Keywords

• Margaret Cavendish
• The Blazing World
• Enlightenment
• Humanism
• Posthumanism

References

1. Blaim, A. (2018). Superhumans, transhumans, and posthumans in early modern utopian fiction. Roczniki Humanistyczne, 66(11), 17-27. https://ojs.tnkul.pl/index.php/ rh/article/view/ 6867
2. Baysal, K. (2020). Posthümanist eleştiri ve Steven Hall’ün Köpekbalığı Metinleri romanı. InYeni tarihselcilikten posthümanist eleştiriye edebiyat kuramları. (pp. 209-233). Çizgi Kitabevi.
3. Bolter, J. D. (2016). Posthumanism. In Christian Fuchs (Ed.). The international encyclopedia of communication theory and philosophy. (pp. 1-8). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ book/10.1002 /978111 8 766804
4. Braidotti, R. (2019). The posthuman as exuberant Excess. In Francesca Ferrando (Ed.). Philosophical posthumanism (First ed., pp. xvi). Blumsbury.
5. Braidotti, R. (2019). The posthuman. Polity Press.
6. Braidotti, R. (2015). Posthuman feminist theory. In Lisa Disch and Mary Hawkesworth (Eds.). The Oxford handbook of feminist theory (pp. 673-698). Oxford University Press.
7. Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.
8. Cavendish, M. (2019). The Blazing World. Global Grey. https://www.global greyebooks.com/blazing-world-ebook.html

9. Ferrando, F. (2014). Posthumanism. Tidsskrift for kjønnsforskning, 38(2), 168-172.
10. Ferrando, F. (2013). Posthumanism, transhumanism, antihumanism, metahumanism, and new materialisms differences and relations. An International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts, 8(2), 26-32.
11. Haraway, D. (2016). Manifestly haraway. University of Minnesota Press.
12. Merchant, C. (2008). ‘The violence of impediments’: Francis Bacon and the origins of experimentation. Isis, 99(4), 731-760. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/597767
13. Nanda, A. (2010). Re-Writing the Bhabhian “Mimic Man”: Akin, the posthuman other in octavia butler’s adulthood rites. ARIEL, 41(3–4), 115-135.
14. Sanchez, M. E. (2015). Posthumanist spenser? Spenser Studies: A Renaissance Poetry Annual, 30(1), 19-31.
15. Scimecca, J. (2007). Humanism. In George Ritzer (Ed.). The blackwell encyclopedia of sociology. Wiley.
16. Spender, D. (1988). Mothers of the novel. Pandora Press.
17. Swarbrick, S. & Raber, K. (2020). Introduction: Renaissance posthumanism and its afterlives. Criticism, 62(3), 313-328.
18. Suzuki, M. (2021). Thinking beings and animate matter margaret cavendish’s challenge to the early modern order of things. In Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks (Ed.). Challenging women's agency and activism in early modernity (pp. 183-206). Amsterdam University Press.
19. Wolfe, C. (2010). What is posthumanism? University of Minnesota Press.