Research Article

Mimesis Reconfigured: Material-Feminist and Posthumanist Transformations of the Female Body in British Women Writers

Number: 9 October 23, 2025
TR EN

Mimesis Reconfigured: Material-Feminist and Posthumanist Transformations of the Female Body in British Women Writers

Abstract

This article rethinks the concept of mimesis through the lenses of feminist theory, material feminism, and posthumanism. It argues that the mimetic is no longer a matter of aesthetic resemblance or passive imitation but a dynamic, embodied, and ethical mode of becoming. The study, challenging the classical, gendered binaries embedded in Platonic and Aristotelian frameworks, traces how thinkers such as Irigaray, Cixous, Butler, Barad, Alaimo, Braidotti, Malabou, and Lawtoo reconceptualize mimesis as an intra- active, plastic, affective contagion with relational inclinations. Drawing on these reconfigurations, the article offers a constellation of literary analyses from British women writers—ranging from Marie de France and Julian of Norwich to Mary Shelley, Jean Rhys, Virginia Woolf, and Jeanette Winterson— showcasing how mimesis operates as a site of corporeal inscriptions, ethical resonances, and onto- epistemological transformations. Across six thematic clusters—mystical affect, reproductive horror, spatial confinement, temporal fluidity, post-traumatic haunting, and interspecies becoming—the essay demonstrates how British women’s literature mobilizes mimetic processes to reimagine embodiments beyond representational captures. In doing so, it proposes a mimetic ethics grounded in vulnerability, response-ability, and co-becoming, and offers new directions for material-feminist literary criticism and posthumanist thought.

Keywords

References

  1. Ağın, Başak. “Mansplaining, Gaslighting, and Microaggression: Lord Byron’s Anger in Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein.” Forthcoming.
  2. ———, and Şafak Horzum. “An Implosive Introduction: Haunted Experiences, Affective Assemblages, and Collective Imaginings.” In Posthuman Pathogenesis: Contagion in Literature, Arts, and Media, edited by Başak Ağın and Şafak Horzum. Routledge, 2023.
  3. ———, and Şafak Horzum. “Diseased Bodies Entangled: Literary and Cultural Crossroads of Posthuman Narrative Agents.” SFRA Review 51, no. 2 (2021): 150–157.
  4. Akkülah Doğan, Emine. “The Paradox of Free Women in Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook.” DTCF Journal 61, no. 1 (2021): 454–471. https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2021.61.1.18
  5. Alaimo, Stacy. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Indiana University Press, 2010.
  6. Alderman, Naomi. The Power. Penguin Books, 2017.
  7. Altın, Merve. “Breaking the Silence: Woman as a Subject in Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls.”
  8. DTCF Journal 61, no. 2 (2021): 841–863. https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2021.61.2.9

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

World Languages, Literature and Culture (Other), Literary Theory, Comparative and Transnational Literature, Literary Studies (Other)

Journal Section

Research Article

Publication Date

October 23, 2025

Submission Date

August 4, 2025

Acceptance Date

September 25, 2025

Published in Issue

Year 2025 Number: 9

APA
Horzum, Ş. (2025). Mimesis Reconfigured: Material-Feminist and Posthumanist Transformations of the Female Body in British Women Writers. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, 9, 187-223. https://doi.org/10.64957/nesir.1802900
AMA
1.Horzum Ş. Mimesis Reconfigured: Material-Feminist and Posthumanist Transformations of the Female Body in British Women Writers. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi. 2025;(9):187-223. doi:10.64957/nesir.1802900
Chicago
Horzum, Şafak. 2025. “Mimesis Reconfigured: Material-Feminist and Posthumanist Transformations of the Female Body in British Women Writers”. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, nos. 9: 187-223. https://doi.org/10.64957/nesir.1802900.
EndNote
Horzum Ş (October 1, 2025) Mimesis Reconfigured: Material-Feminist and Posthumanist Transformations of the Female Body in British Women Writers. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi 9 187–223.
IEEE
[1]Ş. Horzum, “Mimesis Reconfigured: Material-Feminist and Posthumanist Transformations of the Female Body in British Women Writers”, Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, no. 9, pp. 187–223, Oct. 2025, doi: 10.64957/nesir.1802900.
ISNAD
Horzum, Şafak. “Mimesis Reconfigured: Material-Feminist and Posthumanist Transformations of the Female Body in British Women Writers”. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi. 9 (October 1, 2025): 187-223. https://doi.org/10.64957/nesir.1802900.
JAMA
1.Horzum Ş. Mimesis Reconfigured: Material-Feminist and Posthumanist Transformations of the Female Body in British Women Writers. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi. 2025;:187–223.
MLA
Horzum, Şafak. “Mimesis Reconfigured: Material-Feminist and Posthumanist Transformations of the Female Body in British Women Writers”. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi, no. 9, Oct. 2025, pp. 187-23, doi:10.64957/nesir.1802900.
Vancouver
1.Şafak Horzum. Mimesis Reconfigured: Material-Feminist and Posthumanist Transformations of the Female Body in British Women Writers. Nesir: Edebiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi. 2025 Oct. 1;(9):187-223. doi:10.64957/nesir.1802900

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