'I must climb inside the skin of the girl': Becoming Posthuman in British Fiction 1950-1980

This project links theories of posthuman embodiment and representations of gender in postwar British fiction by recognising an embedded, relational body as a radical presence in the fiction of Muriel Spark, Barbara Comyns, Barbara Pym and Angela Carter. My approach facilitates a new understanding of the becoming-subject in fiction that spans the margins of human and posthuman conceptions of being. The project works with the metaphysics of Gilles Deleuze and the theories of Feminist New Materialism to uncover the presence of an emerging posthumanism, characterised by moment-to-moment actualisation and shifting materiality. In paying particular attention to the gendered subject, it demonstrates that a posthuman becoming is realisable from within a human paradigm, bringing human and posthuman into critical conversation. In doing so, it articulates a previously unheard challenge from fiction of this period to liberal humanism, a challenge which integrates both a critique of gendered power and a relationality which transcends the dualities of masculine/feminine and human/posthuman.

The research questions are:
1. How does fiction embody a posthuman becoming-subject within a human paradigm?
2. What is the role of an interconnected body in fiction which crosses the boundary between human and nonhuman?
3. What is the relationship between narrative and the body in fiction which challenges the category of human?
4. What does an investigation of fiction from this period tell us about how the human is conceptualised in post-war culture?