Vegetarianism in the Anthropocene: Richard Powers and Jonathan Franzen

Theo Savvas

doi:10.1080/0950236X.2018.1509273

Vegetarianism in the Anthropocene: Richard Powers and Jonathan Franzen

Theo Savvas

Department of English

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

619 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This article uses the representation of vegetarianism in Richard Powers’ The Echo Maker (2006) and Jonathan Franzen’s Purity (2015) as a way to think about broader issues of ecological engagement. It argues that these issues are related to the ways in which each writer approaches questions of subjectivity and form after postmodernism. It concludes that the posthumanist dimension of Powers’ novel, achieved through formal experimentation, is a more successful engagement with the questions posed by the age of the Anthropocene than Franzen’s continued realism.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	213-228
Number of pages	16
Journal	Textual Practice
Volume	33
Issue number	2
Early online date	18 Aug 2018
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2018.1509273
Publication status	Published - Feb 2019

Keywords

Anthropocene
Jonathan Franzen
Postmodernism
Realism
Richard Powers
Vegetarianism

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10.1080/0950236X.2018.1509273

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Vegetarianism in the Anthropocene: Richard Powers and Jonathan Franzen

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Keywords

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Introduction: American Fiction after Postmodernism

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