A New Geological (R)age: Orogeny, Anger, and the Anthropocene in N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season.
In The Fifth Season (2015), N.K. Jemisin depicts speculative seismological and volcanic events to defamiliarize the outcomes of slavery from their American instantiations, making them starkly visible again and again. I argue that analyzing how The Fifth Season articulates this understanding requires...
| Published in: | Science Fiction Studies Vol. 50; no. 3; pp. 321 - 346 |
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| Format: | Article |
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University of California Press
Nov2023
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=172927647&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 172927647 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00917729 SFS jtl: Science Fiction Studies issn: 00917729 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Nov2023 vid: 50 iid: 3 pid: 414 pub: University of California Press artinfo: ui: 172927647 10.1353/sfs.2023.a910324 ppf: 321 ppct: 25 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 2.7MB tig: atl: A New Geological (R)age: Orogeny, Anger, and the Anthropocene in N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season. aug: au: Lee, Regina Y. su: Orogeny Anthropocene Epoch Fifth Season, The (Book : Jemisin) Plate tectonics Volcanoes sug: subj: Orogeny Anthropocene Epoch Fifth Season, The (Book : Jemisin) Plate tectonics Volcanoes ab: In The Fifth Season (2015), N.K. Jemisin depicts speculative seismological and volcanic events to defamiliarize the outcomes of slavery from their American instantiations, making them starkly visible again and again. I argue that analyzing how The Fifth Season articulates this understanding requires a geological or, more precisely, a tectonic lens. In this paper I focus on The Fifth Season specifically for its tripartite narrative stratification, which reproduces the geological mechanisms of building and destroying mountains in the space of a human lifetime. Jemisin uses volcanos, tectonic plates, slip strikes, and especially earthquakes to parallel, echo, amplify, and foreshadow her characters' responses and actions. This is a tectonic tactic, not only for negotiating the violent ruptures of the novel's ironically named world of "The Stillness" but also for tracing slavery's historical arc, requiring multifaceted transnational analyses across centuries to track its devastating trajectories. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Science Fiction Studies is the property of University of California Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Science Fiction Studies holder: University of California Press dt: @attributes: year: 2023 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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