Accountable Metaphors: The Transhuman Poetics of Failure in Tao Lin’s Taipei

  • Miriam Fernández-Santiago Universidad de Granada
DOI: https://doi.org/10.28914/Atlantis-2021-43.1.02

Abstract

Tao Lin’s novel Taipei (2013) can be described as a picture of transhuman existence in the current digital world. However, its poetics of failure does not seem to adjust to the typically utopian visions that have often been related to transhumanism. Instead, the novel’s aesthetic approach resists diverse forms of transhumanist universalism in ways that are closer to the theoretical premises of critical posthumanism and agential materialism. In this article, I analyze Lin’s use of accountable metaphors and poetic failure in Taipei as a means to resist uncritical claims to transhumanist, universalist aesthetics.

Author Biography

Miriam Fernández-Santiago, Universidad de Granada
Miriam Fernández-Santiago is a senior lecturer in the Department of English and German Philology, University of Granada, where she teaches literary theory, postcolonial literature and the cultures of English-speaking countries. She is Principal Investigator of the research group “Studies in Literature, Criticism and Culture” (HUM 676). Her research interests include cultural and intercultural studies, critical theory, US literature, posthumanism and trauma studies.

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Published
2021-06-28
Issue
2021: Vol. 43, Num. 1
Section
Articles

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