人類世中的文學：以超物件閱讀二十一世紀美國小說

Abstract

本論文提出名為「超物件閱讀」的後批判閱讀模式，以回應同一現象於不同量尺之下以不同方式體現的人類世量尺差異問題。以往見到的解決方式無法兼顧不同量尺。超物件閱讀藉由向文本內的超物件調和並追尋其輪廓，得以闡釋不同量尺如何受超物件影響。 第一章說明超物件閱讀的脈絡與程序，尤其著重說明人類世、經修正的物件導向本理論、後批判轉折，以及稱為修辭詩學的敘事學分支等脈絡。第二章是三篇案例分析之首，向失能超物件調和以閱讀約書亞．費瑞斯的小說《The Unnamed》（2010）。為彌補醫學、社會與關聯等失能模型之不足，我提出辯證失能模型以闡釋位於身體、心理、物質生態與社會生態之交錯點的平衡生態位。第三章向數位超物件調和以閱讀林韜的小說《Taipei》（2013）。為正確勾勒數位邏輯對類比生命經驗的影響，我將迷因重新定義，並提出名為情感物件的新物件類型用以探索概念層次以下的思維量尺與生死間的觀點分野。第四章向敘事超物件調和以閱讀Ben Lerner的說《10:04》（2014）。藉由將主角於小說的後設小說與私小說敘事生態中定位，我描繪以惠特曼式序列化與回顧移位將社會概念化的新方法，以此方法所構成的敘事超物件抗衡新自由主義的敘事超物件。第五章透過史坦尼斯勞．萊姆的小說《索拉力星》（1961）對超物件作概念分析。索拉力星是一星球／外星生物超物件，因而在其身上體現超物件的五項定義性面向：黏性、非定位性、時間波動、分相性與互為物件性。小說的三個主要人物則分別體現對超物件的三種回應方式：終止、倡議人類中心主義，與調和。希冀閱讀文本超物件可提示如何向文本外的人類世超物件調和。This dissertation proposes a postcritical mode of reading called “hyperobject reading” in response to the problem of Anthropocene scale variance, in which the same phenomena manifest differently at different scales. Previous attempted responses inevitably engaged in trade-offs between scales. By attuning to hyperobjects in the text and tracing their contours, hyperobject reading accounts for the multiple scales affected by a hyperobject. Chapter 1 details the contexts and procedure of hyperobject reading, highlighting in particular the contexts of the Anthropocene, a modified object-oriented ontology, the postcritical turn, and the branch of narratology called rhetorical poetics. Chapter 2, the first of three case studies, reads Joshua Ferris’s novel The Unnamed (2010) in attunement with the disability-hyperobject. In response to the insufficiencies of the medical, social, and relational models of disability, I propose the dialectical model to account for the equilibrial niche at the nexus of body, mind, and physical and social ecologies. Chapter 3 reads Tao Lin’s Taipei (2013) in attunement with the digital-hyperobject. To properly outline the effects of digital logic on analogue lived experience, I redefine the concept of the meme and propose a new type of object called the affective object in order to explore the sub-conceptual scale of thought and the perspectival line between life and death. Chapter 4 reads Ben Lerner’s 10:04 (2014) in attunement with the narrative-hyperobject. By locating the protagonist within the novel’s metafictional and autofictional narrative ecology, I sketch a new means of conceptualizing the social and countering the narrative-hyperobject of neoliberalism with another narrative-hyperobject, one constituted by Whitmanian serialization and retrospective shifts. The final chapter approaches hyperobjects conceptually through Stanisław Lem’s Solaris (1961). Solaris, a planet/alien hyperobject, evinces the five defining aspects of a hyperobject: viscosity, nonlocality, temporal undulation, phasing, and interobjectivity. In turn, the three main characters of the novel respectively embody the three main responses to a hyperobject: neutralization, anthropocentrism, and attunement. I hope that reading textual hyperobjects can suggest ways to attune to extratextual hyperobjects in the Anthropocene.