No dia 22 de maio, Maria Sofia Pimentel Biscaia (Universidade de Aveiro) será a oradora convidada do webminar The Post-Human Animal. Nesta sessão será discutido o artigo To Be or Not to Be Extinct: Critical and Speculative Posthuman Prospects in The Venomous Lumpsucker, de Ned Beauman.

O evento acontece pelas 15h, via Zoom.

In this funnily heartbreaking eco/techno-thriller, a new industry has been brought about by climate change disasters: extinction. Through their two main characters, Mark Halyard and Karin Resaint, the tensions between corporate capitalism and ecological forces work together for opposing reasons to learn whether the venomous lumpsucker, whose intelligence can dictate its salvation from extinction, is actually still alive. The elusive fish materialises a philosophical debate on the very concept of extinction as a species might be classified as not extinct even if no specimen no longer lives but is potentially re-animated through biotechnology. I will discuss how the novel raises questions about animal grievability as, unlike the lovable panda, the lumpsucker will not be missed, animal necropolitics, and even rewilding ideologies. Crucially, I will also approach the novel using the lens of critical posthumanism and speculative posthumanism whose ethical positions are often opposed. 

Maria Sofia Pimentel Biscaia holds a doctoral degree in Literature by the University of Aveiro (2005). She has conducted interdisciplinary research in the fields of visual, gender and postcolonial studies, including on South Asian, African, British and Luso-American authors. She is part of the international project Bodies in Transit 2 which addresses how bodies have been historically transformed through social relations, discourses, and technologies, by drawing from feminist, queer, postcolonial and posthumanist theories of the embodied self. She has been increasingly interested in Critical Animal Studies and has presented numerous papers in international conferences on related issues ranging from queer animality, food studies, advertising and national identity, feminist and postcolonial intersections.