ABSTRACT
By situating H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction in the context of post-anthropocentric theory and microbiology, this chapter demonstrates the ethical potential of Lovecraftian viruses and virality. Lovecraft’s depictions of viruses and other microbes illustrate the porous network of humans, nonhumans, and environment informing the principles of posthumanism, new materialism, and corporeal feminism. With particular attention to “The Colour out of Space,” a tale of otherworldly infection, I argue that despite the horror, Lovecraft’s stories outline the transformative potential of cross-species exchanges in ways akin to theorists like Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway, and Stacy Alaimo. Furthermore, Lovecraft models the openness to difference necessary for transformative ethics by inviting other authors to extend and reshape his Cthulhu Mythos. Ironically and against his xenophobia, Lovecraft was a generous host, and we can read his oeuvre for examples of posthuman ethical engagement based in the shared vulnerabilities, inevitable asymmetries, and mutational encounters of humans and their Others. Lovecraft’s viral networks thus offer a contaminated ethics for the Chthulucene, inviting us to open ourselves to the transformational encounters required for contemporary entanglements.
