Maria and the Posthuman in George Stewart’s Storm
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7152984 |
|---|---|
| Authors | André Vasques Vital (0000-0002-6959-3196, Evangelical University of Goiás – UniEVANGELICA, corresponding author), Diogo De Carvalho Cabral (0000-0002-2415-4675, Trinity College Dublin) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 106 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 698-712 |
| Publication date | 2025-07-04 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | English Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-838X • E-ISSN: 1744-4217 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0013838x.2025.2526313 |
| OpenAlex | W4413222022 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 24 |
The article analyses the human as post-human or the decentring of its agency in Storm (1941), a best-seller by American writer George R. Stewart. Although not generally considered a disaster story, it arguably foreshadows the late-twentieth-century Hollywoodian narrative of natural catastrophes in that it follows diverse people’s adventures during an environmental crisis. The human characters’ mishaps in Storm actually conjure up the real protagonist – Maria, a powerful extratropical cyclone formed in southeast Japan that would cross the Pacific Ocean, eventually reaching California. The article suggests that Maria highlights the deep and uncomfortable human immersion in a universe of intimacy and coexistence with non-human objects and phenomena. On the one hand, this atmospheric reality is alienated from humans due to its lack of intentionality and intellectual abstraction, which are vital requirements for freedom and control of oneself and the world in the modern Western perspective. On the other hand, the storm is a phenomenon that engenders several different events and contingencies that pull people from their alienation from planetary material processes that manifest themselves through human suffering and misfortunes. Thus, Maria highlights human vulnerability in a world inhabited by powerful forces utterly indifferent to human desires for control and stability
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · George (robot) · Posthuman · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Philosophy
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Nature as historical protagonist
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| Highly cited | No |
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