About: In the face of continuing post-war reconstruction and the rising tide of urbanization, British science fiction writers such as John Wyndham (a pseudonym for John Beynon Harris) and John Christopher (Sam Youd) portrayed post-apocalyptic scenarios in which the vegetal directly determines the fate of human civilization. By destabilizing the relationship between plant and human, Wyndham and Christopher open up a space to reconsider the vegetal as a distinct life form itself, beyond its instrumental use-value, or as an anthropomorphized reflection of human thought. Although plant life is traditionally defined by its inability to move or to speak, both writers suggest that communication bound to the visual or oral is highly limited (for instance, human sight is confined to a limited spectrum). In Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (1951) plants become mobile and seemingly sentient, in the process becoming an invasive presence that exposes and challenges the limits of anthropocentric thought. By contrast, in Christopher’s The Death of Grass (1956), the absence of the vegetal renders manifest the subaltern status of plant life, while suggesting that plants are able to communicate through their materiality and posture. Both texts signal that what is conventionally understood as Other is actually a blank repository that ventriloquizes humans’ unconscious desire. Following the population’s sudden loss of sight in The Day of the Triffids, the characters begin to project their own thoughts and emotions onto the triffids, which highlights the indeterminate limits of anthropomorphic representation. The Death of Grass demonstrates that such anthropocentrism constitutes an act of metaphysical violence that, at the same time, under-imagines plant life and installs specialist terminology and botanical classification as a substitute. Presenting the relationship between plant life and human life as a contested space, these texts manifest the problem of anthropocentric certainties and the absolute alterity of plant-thought.

Facets (new session)
Description
Metadata
Settings
- owl:sameAs
- Inference Rule:

About: In the face of continuing post-war reconstruction and the rising tide of urbanization, British science fiction writers such as John Wyndham (a pseudonym for John Beynon Harris) and John Christopher (Sam Youd) portrayed post-apocalyptic scenarios in which the vegetal directly determines the fate of human civilization. By destabilizing the relationship between plant and human, Wyndham and Christopher open up a space to reconsider the vegetal as a distinct life form itself, beyond its instrumental use-value, or as an anthropomorphized reflection of human thought. Although plant life is traditionally defined by its inability to move or to speak, both writers suggest that communication bound to the visual or oral is highly limited (for instance, human sight is confined to a limited spectrum). In Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (1951) plants become mobile and seemingly sentient, in the process becoming an invasive presence that exposes and challenges the limits of anthropocentric thought. By contrast, in Christopher’s The Death of Grass (1956), the absence of the vegetal renders manifest the subaltern status of plant life, while suggesting that plants are able to communicate through their materiality and posture. Both texts signal that what is conventionally understood as Other is actually a blank repository that ventriloquizes humans’ unconscious desire. Following the population’s sudden loss of sight in The Day of the Triffids, the characters begin to project their own thoughts and emotions onto the triffids, which highlights the indeterminate limits of anthropomorphic representation. The Death of Grass demonstrates that such anthropocentrism constitutes an act of metaphysical violence that, at the same time, under-imagines plant life and installs specialist terminology and botanical classification as a substitute. Presenting the relationship between plant life and human life as a contested space, these texts manifest the problem of anthropocentric certainties and the absolute alterity of plant-thought. Goto Sponge NotDistinct Permalink

An Entity of Type : fabio:Abstract, within Data Space : wasabi.inria.fr associated with source document(s)

Attributes	Values
type	abstract
value	In the face of continuing post-war reconstruction and the rising tide of urbanization, British science fiction writers such as John Wyndham (a pseudonym for John Beynon Harris) and John Christopher (Sam Youd) portrayed post-apocalyptic scenarios in which the vegetal directly determines the fate of human civilization. By destabilizing the relationship between plant and human, Wyndham and Christopher open up a space to reconsider the vegetal as a distinct life form itself, beyond its instrumental use-value, or as an anthropomorphized reflection of human thought. Although plant life is traditionally defined by its inability to move or to speak, both writers suggest that communication bound to the visual or oral is highly limited (for instance, human sight is confined to a limited spectrum). In Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids (1951) plants become mobile and seemingly sentient, in the process becoming an invasive presence that exposes and challenges the limits of anthropocentric thought. By contrast, in Christopher’s The Death of Grass (1956), the absence of the vegetal renders manifest the subaltern status of plant life, while suggesting that plants are able to communicate through their materiality and posture. Both texts signal that what is conventionally understood as Other is actually a blank repository that ventriloquizes humans’ unconscious desire. Following the population’s sudden loss of sight in The Day of the Triffids, the characters begin to project their own thoughts and emotions onto the triffids, which highlights the indeterminate limits of anthropomorphic representation. The Death of Grass demonstrates that such anthropocentrism constitutes an act of metaphysical violence that, at the same time, under-imagines plant life and installs specialist terminology and botanical classification as a substitute. Presenting the relationship between plant life and human life as a contested space, these texts manifest the problem of anthropocentric certainties and the absolute alterity of plant-thought.
part of	What We Think About When We Think About Triffids: The Monstrous Vegetal in Post-war British Science Fiction
is abstract of	What We Think About When We Think About Triffids: The Monstrous Vegetal in Post-war British Science Fiction

Faceted Search & Find service v1.13.91 as of Mar 24 2020

Alternative Linked Data Documents: Sponger | ODE Content Formats:

RDF

ODATA

Microdata

About

OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3229 as of Jul 10 2020, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu), Single-Server Edition (94 GB total memory)
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2025 OpenLink Software