Posthuman Body in Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

Yıl 2025, Sayı: 63, 41 - 62, 30.06.2025

Derya Biderci Dinç

https://doi.org/10.35237/suitder.1617233

Öz

This study aims to analyse the posthuman body in Nights at the Circus (1984) by Angela Carter from the perspective of posthuman feminism. Posthuman feminism explores the humanist ideology that hierarchically categorizes and separates human and nonhuman, man and woman, self and other. It offers perspectives on the meaning of being human which is a historical construct and the complexities of gender, species, and identity, blurring the boundaries between the categories of human, species, and gender. Nights at the Circus can be read alongside posthuman feminist philosophy in its attempt to destabilize the limits of humanist rationalism to reckon alternative subject positions. This study explores how Carter deconstructs and reconstructs what it means to be human, and femininity and otherness in the novel. The main character, Sophia Fevvers has a body which is in a state between human and nonhuman as she is a woman with the wings of a bird. Her hybrid body is a posthuman body that is constructed with bodily ambiguity. Her embodiment transgresses beyond being human, there is no separation between her body and nature. Fevvers’s posthuman body gives her freedom.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Angela Carter , Boundary , Hybrid , Posthuman Feminism , POsthuman Body

Angale Carter’ın Sirk Geceleri Romanında Posthüman Beden

Öz

Bu çalışma, Angela Carter'ın Sirk Geceleri (1984) romanındaki posthüman bedeni posthüman feminizm çerçevesinde incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Posthüman feminizm, insanı ve insan olmayanı, kültürü ve doğayı, benliği ve ötekini ve erkeği ve kadını hiyerarşik olarak kategorize eden ve ayıran insan merkezli hümanist düşünce geleneğiyle ilgilenir. İnsan, tür ve toplumsal cinsiyet kategorileri arasındaki çizgiyi bulanıklaştırarak, tarihsel bir yapılandırma olan insan olmanın ne anlama geldiğine ve cinsiyet, tür ve kimliğin karmaşıklığına dair bakış açıları sunar. Sirk Geceleri, alternatif özne konumlarını hesaba katarak hümanist rasyonalizmin sınırlarını istikrarsızlaştırma girişiminde bulunan posthüman feminist felsefeyle birlikte okunabilir. Bu çalışma, Carter’ın romanda insan olmanın ne anlama geldiğini, kadınlığı ve ötekiliği nasıl yapı bozuma uğratıp yeniden inşa ettiğini inceler. Ana karakter Sophia Fevvers, insan ve insan olmayan arasında bir bedene sahiptir çünkü kuşkanatlarına sahip bir kadındır. Onun melez bedeni bedensel belirsizlikle inşa edilmiş bir posthüman bendendir. Bedensel varoluşu insan olmanın ötesine geçe, bedeni kesin sınırlarla doğadan ayrılmamıştır. Fevvers’ın posthüman bedeni onu özgürlüğe kavuşturur.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Angela Carter , Sınır , Melez , Posthüman Beden , Posthüman Feminizm

Kaynakça

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