Stéphanie Posthumus
At the intersection of several contemporary critical streams, Stephanie Posthumus’s research focuses on the representations of the non-human, or more-than-human, in contemporary French literature as well as across European literatures and cultures.
Constructing an ecological perspective for examining 20th and 21st Century French literary texts has been the main goal of her work since she finished her doctoral thesis in 2003. As Prof. Posthumus argues in several articles, ecocriticism, while based on a concern for global environmental problems, is not transferable from one national literature to another. Her work in this field was acknowledged as being both original and important when she was awarded the prize for the best article published in 2009 by a member of the APFUCC (Association des professeurs de français aux universités et collèges canadiens) and her book French Écocritique was nominated for best book of the year by the Association for Literature, Environment, and Culture in Canada.
A second branch of her work looks at representations of animals in contemporary French literature. Whereas ecocriticism remains on the periphery of French literary studies, the animal question has garnered much critical attention in France. Researching different disciplinary work on animals, from philosophy (Jacques Derrida, Élisabeth de Fontenay, Dominique Lestel) to ethology (Boris Cyrulnik, Georges Chapouthier), from literary criticism (Lucile Desblache, Anne Simon) to animal ethics (Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer), Prof. Posthumus aims to define the animal question with respect to the French contemporary context. At the same time, she is interested in comparing this context to that of other European countries as the European Union has become an important ruling body for establishing laws about animal well-being and rights in Europe. The relationships between local, regional, and cultural differences in a global landscape are at the heart of Prof. Posthumus’s work on ecocriticism and animal studies.
Ecocritical Bibliography
Books
2019 Co-authors, Greg Garrard, Axel Goodbody, George Handley. Climate Change Scepticism: A Transnational Ecocritical Analysis. Bloomsbury Academic Press: London/New York, 2019.
2017 French Écocritique: Reading Contemporary French Theory and Fiction Ecologically. Toronto: UP Toronto, 2017.
2010 La Nature et l’écologie chez Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Serres, Michel Tournier. Saarbruck: Éditions universitaires européennes, 2010.
Edited volumes
2017 Co-editor Daniel Finch-Race, French Ecocriticism: From the Early Modern Period to the Twenty-First Century, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2017.
2015 Co-editor Louisa Mackenzie. French Thinking about Animals. East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 2015.
Co-edited journal issue
2016 Co-editor Cheryl Lousley. Special article cluster: “Canadian Forum on Bruno Latour’s An Inquiry into Modes of Existence.” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities 4.1 (2016). Contributors: Guillaume Blanc, Susan Brown, Brett Buchanan, Adrian Ivakhiv, Cheryl Lousley, Stephanie Posthumus.
Refereed Articles
2018 Co-authors, Stéfan Sinclair and Veronica Poplawski, “Digital Environmental Humanities: Strong Networks, Innovative Tools, Interactive Objects,” Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities, 5.2 (2018): 156-171.
2015 “L’imaginaire paysan et l’habiter écologique chez Marie-Hélène Lafon et Michel Serres,” Fixxion, Revue critique de fixxion française contemporaine. Special issue: Écopoétiques. 11 (2015): 100-11.
2014 Co-author Stéfan Sinclair. “Reading Environment(s): Digital Humanities and Ecocriticism.” Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism. 18.3 (2014); 254-73.
2014 “Pour une écocritique interdisciplinaire et engagée. Analyse de la nature et de l’environnement dans les sciences humaines.” Formes poétiques contemporaines 11 (2014): 7-30.
2014 “Les Enjeux des animaux (humains) chez Michel Houellebecq, du darwinisme au post-humanisme,” French Studies Vol. LXVIII.3 (2014): 359-76.
2014 “Portraits de l’homo litteratus dans le darwinisme littéraire et La Possibilité d’une île de Michel Houellebecq.” @nalyses, Revue de critique et de théorie littéraire, 9.2 (2014): 70-95.
2013 Co-author Louisa Mackenzie. “Reading Latour Outside: A Response to the Estok-Robisch Controversy,” Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature and the Environment, 20.4 (2013): 757-77.
2012 “Penser l’imagination environnementale française sous le signe de la différence,” Raison publique 17 (2012): 15-31.
2012 “Writing the Land/scape: Marie Darrieussecq’s Le Pays,” French Literary Studies: The Environment in French and Francophone Literature and Film 30 (2012): 103-117.
2011 “Vers une écocritique française: le contrat naturel de Michel Serres,” Mosaic, a journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature 44.2 (2011): 85-100.
2011 Co-author Stéfan Sinclair. “L’Inscription de la nature et de la technologie dans La possibilité d’une île de Michel Houellebecq,” Contemporary French & Francophone Studies 15.3 (2011): 349-356
2010 “État des lieux de la pensée écocritique française,” Eco-zon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture, Environment 1.1 (2010): 148-154.
2009 “‘Deux truites frémissant flanc à flanc’ : le structuralisme et l’écologisme chez Michel Tournier,” Dalhousie French Studies 85 (2009): 167-82.
2008 “L’Exception écologiste française : Globalia de Jean-Christophe Rufin,” Contemporary French & Francophone Studies 12.4 (2008): 455-62.
2008 “Framing French Eco-Difference: A Brief Overview,” Re-Public: Re-Imagining Democracy. Special Issue: From climate change to environmental justice? (2008): 1-5.
2007 “Translating Ecocriticism: Dialoguing with Michel Serres,” Reconstruction. Special Issue: Eco-Cultures: Culture Studies and the Environment 7.2 (2007): 1-24.
2005 “Une approche écologique: les lieux d’enfance chez Michel Tournier,” Voix Plurielles. Special Issue: Récits d’enfance. Ed. Hélène Cazes. 2.1 (2005): 1-12.
Book Chapters
2018 “Eco-Animal Assemblages in French Contemporary Theory,” in Texts, Animals, Environments. Zoopoetics and Environmental Poetics, eds. Sebastian Schönbeck, Frederike Middelhoff, Catrin Gersdorf, Roland Borgards. Frieburg: Rombach Verlag, 2018. 55-70.
2017 Reprint. Co-author, Stéfan Sinclair. “Reading Environment(s): Digital Humanities and Ecocriticism,” in Digital Environments, ed. Sid Dobrin, London/New York: Routledge, 2017.
2017 “Engaging with Cultural Differences: The Strange Case of French Écocritique,” in French Ecocriticism. From the Early Modern Period to the Twenty-First Century, eds. Daniel Finch-Race and Stephanie Posthumus, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2017. 253-73.
2017 Co-author, Daniel Finch-Race, “Introduction: Developing French Ecocriticism,” in French Ecocriticism. From the Early Modern Period to the Twenty-First Century, eds. Daniel Finch-Race and Stephanie Posthumus, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2017. 9-21.
2017 “Écocritique: Vers une nouvelle analyse du réel, du vivant, du non-humain,” Humanités environnementales: Enquêtes et contre-enquêtes, eds. Guillaume Blanc, Élise Demeulenaere, Wolf Feuerhahn, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2017. 161-180.
2016 Co-author, Stéfan Sinclair, “Digital ? Environmental : Humanities,” Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, eds. Jon Christenson, Ursula Heise, Michelle Niemann, London/New York: Routledge, 2016. 369-77.
2016 Co-author Rachel Bouvet. “Eco- and Geo- Approaches in French and Francophone Literary Studies,” Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology, ed. Hubert Zapf, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. 385-412.
2015 Co-author Louisa Mackenzie. “Introduction,” in French Thinking about Animals, eds. Louisa Mackenzie and Stephanie Posthumus, East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2015. xv-xxii.
2014 “Écocritique et ecocriticism. Repenser le personnage écologique.” La pensée écologique et l’espace littéraire. Eds. Sylvain David and Mirella Vadean. Montreal: Figura, 2014. 15-33.
2013 Co-author Élise Salaün. “‘Mon pays, ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver’: Literary
Representations of Nature and Ecocritical Thought in Québec,” in Greening the Maple: Canadian Ecocriticism in Context. Eds. Nicholas Bradley and Ella Soper-Jones. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2013. 297-327.
2012 “Parcours météorologique, conscience climatique chez Michel Serres et Michel Tournier,” in La Pluie et le beau temps. Discours scientifiques et transformations littéraires, du Moyen Age à l’époque moderne. Ed. Karin Becker. Paris: Hermann, 2012. 379-98.
2003 Co-author Stéfan Sinclair. “Ecology and Technology: ‘Dialogue de sourds’?” Culture and the State: Landscape and Ecology. Eds. James Gifford and Gabrielle Zezulka-Mailloux. Edmonton, AB: CRC Studio, 2003. 167-77.
Invited Contributions
2018 “Un contrat mondial longue durée”. Interviewed by Emmanuel Levine for a special issue of “Le monde selon Michel Serres,” Philosophie Magazine. Hors série 39. October 2018. 51-4.
2016 “Écocritique en français au Canada / Ecocriticism in French in Canada,” The Goose. Tenth Anniversary Edition. 14.2 (2016): 37-9.