‘Storied Matter’ & the Human Response In: Joy Williams’s The Changeling and Samantha Hunt’s The Seas

Abstract

ABSTRACT “‘Storied Matter’ & the Human Response” considers how Williams’s The Changeling (1978; reissued 2018) and Samantha Hunt’s novel The Seas (2004; reissued 2018) embody non-linguist, storied matter by extending the category of narrative agency beyond the realm of the human. Using interdisciplinary frameworks and ideas culled from recent scholarship in literary and writing studies, ecocriticism, anthropology, political theory, and philosophy, I illuminate how the human relationship with non-linguist matter is shaped by class and disposition. Furthermore, I insist that reading for storied matter and trans-corporality proves a powerful antidote for postmodern stagnation and the despair of anthropocentrism.