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

Year 2025, Issue: 9, 187 - 223, 23.10.2025

Şafak Horzum

https://doi.org/10.64957/nesir.1802900

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

Mimesis , material feminism , posthumanism , embodiment , affective relationality , British women’s literature

Supporting Institution

The author declares that no specific funding was received for this research.

Thanks

In this study, artificial intelligence-supported tools were used to a limited extent within the acceptable boundaries defined in Nesir: Journal of Literary Studies’ Artificial Intelligence Use Policy; all content has been reviewed and approved in its final form by the author.

Yeniden Biçimlendirilen Mimesis: Britanyalı Kadın Yazarların Eserlerinde Kadın Bedeninin Maddesel Feminist ve Posthümanist Dönüşümleri

Abstract

Bu makale, mimesis kavramını feminist kuram, maddesel feminizm ve posthümanizm perspektiflerinden yeniden ele almaktadır. Mimetik olanın artık estetik benzerlik ya da pasif taklitten ibaret değil, dinamik, bedensel ve etik bir oluş hâli olduğunu öne sürmektedir. Platoncu ve Aristotelesçi çerçevelere yerleşmiş klasik, cinsiyetçi ikilikleri sorgulayan çalışma, Irigaray, Cixous, Butler, Barad, Alaimo, Braidotti, Malabou ve Lawtoo gibi düşünürlerin, mimesisi içten-etkiyen, plastik, ilişkisel eğilimler taşıyan duygulanımsal bir bulaş olarak nasıl yeniden kavramsallaştırdıklarını izler. Bu yeniden biçimlendirmelerden hareketle makale, Marie de France ve Norwichli Julian’dan Mary Shelley, Jean Rhys, Virginia Woolf ve Jeanette Winterson’a uzanan Britanyalı kadın yazarların metinlerinden oluşan bir edebî analiz dizisi sunar. Bu analizler, mimesisin bedensel izlekler, etik yankılar ve onto-epistemolojik dönüşümler için nasıl bir zemin haline geldiğini ortaya koyar. Mistik duygulanım, üreme dehşeti, mekânsal sınırlanma, zamansal akışkanlık, travma sonrası uğraklık ve türler arası oluş olarak sıralanabilecek altı tematik küme boyunca, seçili Britanya kadın edebiyatı eserlerinin, gerçekliği temsilî olarak yakalamanın ötesine geçerek bedenlenmeyi nasıl yeniden tahayyül ettikleri gösterilmektedir. Böylelikle, kırılganlık, yanıt verebilirlik ve birlikte-oluş temellerine dayanan bir mimetik etik önerilmekte ve maddesel-feminist edebiyat eleştirisi ile posthümanist düşünceye ilişkin yeni yönelimler sunulmaktadır.

Keywords

Mimesis , maddesel feminizm , posthümanizm , bedensellik , duygulanımsal ilişkisellik , Britanya kadın edebiyatı

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