ABSTRACT
When Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer coined the term Anthropocene for our current geological epoch, they also provoked a redefinition of the relation of nature and culture in social and literary sciences, which were already struggling to find new concepts for dealing with the constant emergence of multiple other, non-human or posthuman entities. Accordingly, new narratives concerning the techno-ecological transformations of the planet arise, which are trying to redefine mankind’s place and relevance in light of the new reactive and relational earth, climate, and environmental others. This text is tracing those narratives in the works of Cixin Liu and Jeff Vandermeer by focusing on two opposing philosophies: Trans- and Posthumanism. In Liu’s space saga, transhuman enhancement is put forward as the ideal solution to regain power and re-establish the human dominance in an exponentially accelerating and vastly growing reality. Vandermeer, meanwhile, presents posthuman perspectives, which identify human exceptionalism and anthropocentrism as the original problem that caused planetary disruptions in the first place, while pleading for an embedded, embodied, and entangled narration of our world. The rich story-telling and world-building of both authors are thus demonstrated as attempts to reformulate the outbalanced relation of mankind on Planet Earth.
