Author Information
Reuben Martens, KU Leuven, BelgiumPieter Vermeulen, KU Leuven, Belgium
Abstract
This paper draws on recent developments in the energy humanities to argue for a more multifaceted account of the temporality of infrastructure (beyond the dyad of continuity and apocalypse) and for the vital role of literature in making an anti-apocalyptic temporality apprehensible. The argument consists of two steps. First, by interrogating our physical/emotional reliance on (energy’s) infrastructure, this paper intends to excavate a revitalised understanding of the promises & failures of infrastructure, which can help the field of literary studies move beyond its fascination with apocalyptical thinking. In a second move, the paper will show how contemporary American fiction has begun to model such a mode of physical and emotional attachment to a sustainable and durable infrastructure that just might survive the current Anthropocene emergency. The case studies are Yamashita’s "Tropic of Orange" and Lerner's "10:04”; two novels that are deeply engaged with infrastructure, energy, and the urgency to resist apocalyptic thinking. The focus will shift to the use of prolepsis, which serves to imagine a future that is not an intensification or denial of the present, but that is strangely continuous with what is worth preserving in the present.
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