A paper I wrote in late 2020 and revised in 2021 has been published in Lucero, an academic journal run out of the University of Berkeley.
The paper’s title is: “‘Estou asperamente viva’: on identity and the posthuman in Clarice Lispector’s A Paixão Segundo G.H. and Água Viva“. If you want to read it, here it is.
Writing this paper was an enjoyable exercise both in practising my Portuguese and learning and thinking more about Clarice Lispector and her work, and how it engages with posthumanism. I particularly enjoyed working on Lispector’s cryptic, unnerving novel A Paixão Segundo G.H., which is one of my favourite books.
For those curious, the paper’s abstract is as follows:
“For Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, writing was an act of self-interrogation and of becoming for her characters as well as for herself. This article explores two of Lispector’s novels, A Paixão Segundo G.H. (1964) and Água Viva (1973), in relation to posthuman theory, in particular Rosi Braidotti’s The Posthuman (2013). Braidotti’s work complements that of Lispector, for it asks where the posthuman condition places humanity today; what new forms of subjectivity it supports; and whether the posthuman engenders its own form of inhumanity. Indeed, analyzing these books through a posthumanist lens enables exploration of various questions surrounding identity and human nature. This article consequently examines key concepts in both Lispector’s and Braidotti’s writing such as the individual questioning what it means to be human; the conflict between the individual and society, specifically in relation to concepts of time and the animal; and the broader challenge of navigating narrative subjectivity when writing. Ultimately, through analyzing Lispector’s relationship with words in conjunction with posthuman philosophies, this article seeks to further illuminate the vision of human nature that Lispector sought to communicate via her writing.”
Many thanks to the reviewers and editors at Lucero for their comments on this piece.
